Melody Violine

A Brief of My Comeback in Fiction Writing and Margarita

2012-02-01T13:03:00.003+08:00

2011 was a remarkable year. I enjoy the fact that I've been in my way to come back writing fiction after the disastrous 2010, haha. I've been focused on fantasy, however, for it's been my passion since I was a little girl. I submitted my pieces to three short story contest: LMCR, 2011 Fantasy Fiesta, and Vandaria. I managed to be in the top 200, top 100, and top 3 consecutively. I actually participated in another contest, but I won nothing *gulp* so let's not talk about it ;)

From these contests, I met new people--most of them are young writers with strong passion in writing fantasy. Among their stories, I was most attracted to "Selamanya Bersamamu" written by Fachrul Razi. The piece has a strong character, which is a mad female villain trapping her so-called lover, Richter, in her very own realm of hell. This is how Fachrul's beloved Margarita illustrated by Reinhard Perkasa.

I bet NOW you can see why we adored her so much. Fachrul gave me a poster of this illustration when we first met at the 2011 Indonesian Readers Festival. If you want to know more about Margarita, then, please purchase this book (look below). Fachrul's "Selamanya Bersamamu" had the priviledge to be published in it with 17 others of the top contestants plus 3 of the judges.

I already have one, of course. Margarita's sister, Fachrul's yet another epic character Josephine Armster, would likely appear in the "coming soon" book compilation of Vandaria's top stories (probably 20 pieces as well?) with Melviola from my story which won the contest. Josephine Armster is unique but I still prefer Margarita in many ways. Therefore, I was so excited when Fachrul offered to make Margarita intervewed Melviola. Even in such a supposedly simple conversation, he could make one that was not less spine-chilling. No wonder he is called King Awesome, after all. Thank you, King!

Check the interview here.

Check Melviola's story here.

Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

2011-07-03T18:16:00.001+08:00

Date a girl who reads.

Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads.

You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street.

If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads.

Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close.

When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it.

You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

By: Rosemarie Urquico

You Should Date An Illiterate Girl by Charles Warnke

2011-07-03T18:08:00.001+08:00

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you

Charles Warnke

Describing My Feelings in NSM

2011-04-05T09:52:00.003+08:00

"I wanted something good to happen to me
I know now: this thing will not happen to me
I feel bad because of this"

note: NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) is developed by Anna Wierzbicka.

In Memoriam of Asep Sambodja

2011-03-20T10:14:00.002+08:00

It was about 100 days ago when I heard the worst news in my life. My undergraduate academic supervisor, Mas Asep Sambodja, had just passed away. I felt nothing back then, for maybe the news wasn't unexpected and, paradoxically, deep in my heart I didn't believe it. Mas Asep had been sick for over one and a half year. He suffered intestines cancer--an inheritance from his days as a journalist (that's why I WON'T be a journalist EVER). I also had heard that a doctor had said there had been no hope for him, that he had been only biding his time.

But for a while in 2009, he had recovered from his illness. He had had a difficult surgery in Jakarta, but he had survived. He had regained some weight and had gone to the university again, finishing his research--of which I helped him translating into English. Thus, when Mas Asep got very sick again, I always believed that such miracle would happen again, that I would see him again, healthy and full of life. And for the first few days of his death, I still thought that he were just away looking for a cure to his illness in other cities, I still believed that he would come back.

Mas Asep was my lecturer, my teacher, my friend, and the closest person to a father to me. He's the one who was always proud of me, always believed that I could be everything, always thought that I was a terrific writer even though I was sure I was horrible instead. Now I still have to spend three or four years ahead studying in the university, and it's hard for me to think that he wouldn't be around, that I wouldn't be able to tell him about what I'm going to do this semester and the next, that he wouldn't be there to tell me what he's doing for Indonesian literature.

Of all the things I regret having not told him about is thank you, I'm so grateful that you were there. However, the greatest thing about being left by a writer and a poet is I have many pieces of him in form of books, poems, and online notes that I can read whenever I miss him. Even his wife, Mba Yuni, still go online with his Facebook dan Yahoo! account every now and then so I can always pretend that he's still there. But now I know that I have to accept the fact that he's gone and I have to pray for his well-being in the afterlife. And the fact that it's time to say good bye.

If by Rudyard Kipling

2011-01-11T08:00:00.002+08:00

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

GRE Issue Task 9

2010-09-25T12:21:00.001+08:00

Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing.

There has been a growing debate about whether, in this technologically advanced world, the development of technological tools and how people use them is the underlying reason why the modern society is overwhelmed by increasing loneliness. The speaker states that both factors created such lonely civilizations. However, I can not fully agree with his contention.

First of all, it is true that modern gadgets provided people with a way to busy themselves anywhere, anytime. I remember my teacher told me that when he was young, people used to talk to others they did not even know in cafés in London. The fact that nowadays he would only find people set up barriers from others by indulging themselves with cellular phones or laptops, leaving him with no chance to talk to anyone. This attitude toward technological tools indeed contributes to the increasing loneliness mentioned.

Despite the fact pointed above, the actual purpose of developing technological devices is to facilitate various aspects of our life, including communication. Telephone was invented to allow people to speak to friends without getting out of their houses, so why only the newest form of communication channel—the Internet installed in laptops or other devices—is blamed for it making people lonely. In spite of limiting its users in respect of contact with others, the Internet is actually aiding people to send messages and documents cheaper and faster. The same reason is applicable to mobile phones. Therefore, the speaker’s assertion that the development of technological tools has plunged humanity to loneliness is unconvincing.

Another flaw found in the speaker’s notion is that he fails to compare whether the loneliness was directly caused by the advancing technology. With the ever increasing competitive work force, it is more reasonable to accuse financial demands as the reason why people have less chance to connect themselves to family and friends. Even if the speaker rises the argument that competitiveness is incited by the increasing speed of the most recent devices, it is again how people use it which result in the lack of leisure time to communicate with others.

To sum, the speaker fails to recognize that it is merely how people use the modern tools that make them lonely. The development of such devices itself was instead intended to facilitate people to connect themselves with others. Even if the speed following the advanced technology caused some professions to be more demanding, the culpable side is again the uses that humanity has put to it.

GRE Argument Task 6

2010-09-25T12:12:00.000+08:00

Six months ago the region of Forestville increased the speed limit for vehicles travelling on the region’s highways by ten miles per hour. Since that change took effect, the number of automobile accidents in that region has increased by 15 percent. But the speed limit in Elmsford, a region neighboring Forestville, remained unchanged, and automobile accidents declined slightly during the same six-month period. Therefore, if the citizens of Forestville want to reduce the number of automobile accidents on the region’s highways, they should campaign to reduce Forestville’s speed limit to what it was before the increase.

The speaker recommends that the citizens of Forestville should tell the authorities that they want the speed limit in Forestville’s highways to be reduced to what it was before the ten-mile increase six months ago. The recommendation is made based on the fact that since the new speed limit was enacted, there were more automobile accidents in that region, increasing by 15 percent. The speaker also points out that a neighboring region did not change its speed limit, and its rate of automobile accidents declined slightly during the same period. Although the argument seems plausible, a careful examination upon it reveals its flaws, leaving it unconvincing as it stands.

To begin with, the speaker’s assumption that the decline of automobile accidents in Elmsford was a direct result of the region’s speed limit remained unchanged is specious. It is very possible that there were other factors contributing to the decrease, for example, the neighboring region had been helding an intense campaign on the issue of driving safely. Failing to give such possible explanations, the speaker could not make his argument cogent.

Even if it was true that Elmsford enjoyed slight decline of automobile accidents in its region, the speaker does not mention how slight it was nor did he provide any information about the actual number of speed limit. The speed limit in Elmsford may be irrationally low, and its citizens may actually crave to increase it. Furthermore, it means that Forestville has to reduce its speed limit to the same level. Meanwhile, if the decline was extremely slight, say 0.5%, then reducing the speed limit in Forestville to the same level may not yield a satisfactory result, and annoy its citizens instead.

Eventually, since the rise of Forestville’s speed limit itself did not necessarily cause a higher rate of automobile accidents, the speaker has to look for the actual reason why Forestville endured the increase. There might be some new citizens who provoked the young to drive carelessly. Therefore, the speaker would be able to make a better consideration about whether returning the speed limit to what it was is an effective measurement.

GRE Argument Task 5

2010-09-25T12:08:00.001+08:00

“So that we can improve the quality of education for our students, we should merge the Fort Ann school district with the Hudson Falls school district. Scores on standardized tests for students in the Hudson Falls district rose an average of 25 percent in the past six years. Hudson Falls has five times the number of students as Fort Ann and four times the number of teachers, so they’re able to field more athletic teams and offer more enrichment programs, such as music and art. Three times as many graduates of Hudson Falls High go on immediately to four-year colleges as Fort Ann. Plus, the state aid reimbursement ratio for Hudson Falls is higher than that for Fort Ann.”

The speaker proposes that the Fort Ann school district should merge with the Hudson Falls school district to improve its quality. The proposal is followed with an argument containing some points to support it. Although the argument seems reasonable, it is actually plausible and has many flaws.

If Hudson Falls has five times the number of students as Fort Ann, having only four times the number of teachers means that the previous school has a lower ratio of teachers compared to students as the latter. Therefore, although those teachers can provide more options in the enrichment program, they might not be able to handle the students sufficiently. Eventually, it is doubtful that they can nurture the students’ potentials to the fullest.

Another weakness pertaining to the ratio of students is the fact that there are only three times as many graduates of Hudson Falls High who go immediately to four-year colleges as the Fort Ann. We have to remember that the number of students of the school in the Hudson Falls district is five times larger than the Fort Ann. Thus, if the previous school was indeed better than the latter, it should be expected that there are more than five times as many graduates do.

The last careless assumption is concerned with the state aid reimbursement. Whether it is true that the Hudson Falls school district receives a bigger ratio of aid reimbursement does not matter. There is no guarantee that merging the school with the Fort Ann would agglomerate the funds for both schools. The state might only give on portion, instead of two, of aid reimbursement for the unified schools. In the end, the merging would only encumber both schools.

All in all, if Fort Ann High is looking for a way to improve the quality of its students, merging it with the Hudson Falls is not a good solution. It is more practical to find out how the Hudson Falls High succeed in increasing their students’ average scores in the standardized test and consider to apply it in For Ann.

How to Tackle the Paper-Based TOEFL Reading Comprehension

2010-09-25T11:51:00.000+08:00

The basic rule is DON’T SKIM. You just have to do everything in moderate speed. As long as you don’t slack while doing the test, you’ll be fine. Surely, it is advised that you get adequate practice to improve your so-called “moderate” speed.

If you have some difficulties in understanding the reading passage, well, those in the paper-based TOEFL are actually simple. A paragraph consists of a main sentence and some supporting sentences. Meanwhile, a sentence’s core has a subject and a verb. Have yourself some exercises to mentally break the passage in this way. Don’t get confused with long paragraphs or seemingly endless sentences, because they are all basically the same.

1. Read the first three sentences, look if there is any question related to what you’ve found there. Make a temporary answer if it is possible.
2. Read the rest of the paragraph, look again at the questions. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to answer most of them by then.
3. Repeat step 1 for the next paragraph(s).
4. After reading the whole passage, check the answers you’ve made so far. There may be something you misunderstood when you only had read the first paragraph.

This way, you would not waste your time reading without answering any question (and likely to forget what you’ve just read). Moreover, it would be safer than getting lost in the passage when you try to answer the questions directly.

Dealing with the vocabulary questions is tricky when you have very little knowledge in the area. The best way to prepare yourself is reading everything and make sure that you look for the difficult words (and memorize them, of course). Books specifically telling you about what and how to memorize the most popular words occuring in TOEFL would also help you much.

However, if your time is running out, go get yourself a lot of paper-based TOEFL practice tests. Coin new words there, find their meanings. Make sure that you learn something from the answers’ explanation because experience would make you remember at best.

GRE Argument Task 4

2010-08-31T18:26:00.001+08:00

“An important change is taking place in this area that will permit the Elm Street sotre to attract more business and increase profits. A locally owned grocery store, Ma’s Pantry, is permanently closing in two months because its longtime owner is retiring. The store is just one mile away, on the other side of the interstate highway. One feature that has attracted customers to that store is its deli section, where people order sandwiches to take with them. By adding a deli section to this store, we could expect to attract those customers plus others who used to shop for produce and other groceries.”

The speaker believed that adding a deli section to the Elm Street store will attract customers of the closing in Ma’s Pantry, a grocery store located one mile away. Even though the argument seems plausible, it is flawed in many areas and the speaker missed many things in his consideration.

Assuming that Ma’s Pantry will be closed for good, how can anyone be sure that its customers would go the Elm Street store afterwards? The availability of other stores near Ma’s Pantry as contending alternatives is not mentioned. The writer also did not give any information about the surrounding of the Elm Street store. Is it strategic and can be accessed easily? It that is not the case, people would hardly think of the store as a new shopping destination.

The second flaws relies on the reasoning of the deli section. The fact that the deli section in Ma’s Pantry succeeded does not mean that the Elm Street store would be able to have one as lucrative. It is likely that people buy sandwiches from the deli in Ma’s Pantry as their victuals on the highway. Therefore, there is a big possibility that they would not bother to visit the deli section in the Elm Store, which is located one mile away from the highway, on their way to other state.

The most vulnerable point in the argument is the writer did not mention what will happen to the properties of Ma’s Pantry after its closing. The owner might be retiring, but he could sell his store to others who would run it as usual or develop it to be bigger and more successful than ever. In the end, arguing whether the Elm Street store should have a deli section is completely useless because there would be no customer looking for a new store to shop at all.

Despite everything, if the Elm Street store to be more competitive, it would be better for them to make a distinctive character. The stone could make unique themes every month, build a small playground to keep children busy while their mothers are shopping, or hold fascinating events several times a year. Having something new and convenient would be a more advantageous factor in attracting customers rather than merely copying the rival’s strength.

GRE Argument Task 3

2010-08-31T18:25:00.001+08:00

“There are several unique pieces of sculpture in the Old Quad. Because they stand out-of-doors, it is not possible to secure them at night, and they could be targets for thieves or vandals. A comprehensive security system in the area, including motion detectors and surveillance cameras, would guarantee that these works of art will come to no harm.”

In order to ensure the safety of several unique out-of-doors sculpture in the Old Quad, the speaker proposes that a comprehensive security would work best. However, the argument has flaws in some of its components.

First of all, is it true that the reason they could be targeted for thieves or vandals is merely their being located out-of doors? The sculptures themselves might bear something valuable: gems or antiquities. Thus, the security efforts should be focused on them, not the sculptures. If these precious items are removable, we just have to keep them somewhere safe at night. Without them, the sculptures are less attractive, and hence would attract fewer crimes.

However, if that is not the case and the sculptures are vulnerable to larceny as said in the second sentence of the argument, it is reasonable to infer that the pieces themselves are portable. Therefore, a practical way to keep them save is simply to store them in a warehouse at night.

Now, if the sculptures are big and some irresponsible fellows are prone to vandal it, a security system is needed. Even so, the speaker does not explain how comprehensive his system will be. If it only includes a guard, motion detectors and surveillance cameras, it does not help much. The guard would be incompetent against vandals who act in a group and those with cars or motorcycle ready to take them away—fast. I suggest that a high fence surrounding the pieces would support the security system proposed. The fence could be opened during the day to allow people looking at the unique pieces conveniently.

GRE Issue Task 8

2010-08-31T18:12:00.000+08:00

“Because e-mail places a premium on rapid communication and quick response, it discourages careful thought and well-crafted prose and tends to encourage incivility.”

As the Internet has overtaken most of the functions of the post offices and such, we arrived in the era of rapid communication. Fifteen years ago, we had to wait four days to send letter to a nearby city, almost a week to a neighboring state, and even a month if we sent it from the middle of nowhere to an unknown village in a different contingent. As amazing as it seems, the Internet allows us to send an e-mail to anywhere, as long as the Web is accessible there, in a matter of seconds. Responses could be sent just as quick. If Kahlil Gibran and May Ziadah lived today, it would not take years for them to fall in love to each other. It might only take weeks or even days, instead.

However, there is an issue that the speedy nature of e-mail discourages people from thinking carefully of what they writer. As a consequence, they are not used to well-crafted prose. Even worse, e-mail encourage incivility to the Internet users. However, I disagree that e-mail and its propensity is culpable of those mentioned above. The argument itself is plausible and has at least two vital flaws.

In the argument, the writer implies that he expects conventional mails to be well-written and well-structured. Meanwhile, it is not necessary for mails to be written so well. Whether someone writes in the proper tenses, structures, or paragraph partitionings depends on the individual. It is very likely that some people write to their friends without thinking about any of those felicity. This tendency is brought up when they write e-mails.

Now, let us turn the table to the innovative alternative way of communication. Although “e-mail” stands for “electronic mail”, but does it mean e-mails only replace conventional letters? No, e-mails may be functioned as memos as well. A memo is expected to contain a short message, and thus we have to emphasize the content of the message rather than its rhetorical quality. When an e-mail is sent as a replacement of a memo, the similar inclination occurs.

Eventually, e-mails do not encourage incivility, for the individuals themselves have different degrees of inclination to it. Another point is we can not expect e-mails to be well-crafted because they replace not only letters, but also memos. Therefore, e-mails are not as detrimental as the writer thinks.

GRE Argument Task 2

2010-08-26T14:47:00.002+08:00

“Twenty-five years ago, the depiction of violence in film was rare in the country of Edonia, because the Decency Commission, a quasi-governmental body appointed by the President of Edonia, had the authority to prohibit the showing of violent movies. The authority of the Decency Commission steadily eroded with the result that the incidence of the depiction of violence increased. Two years ago, the Commission was abolished. During the same time, the incidence of crime among Edonia teenagers has increased dramatically. Over 90% of the parents surveyed by the Independent Inquiry Poll stated that they believe that movies are too violent. Therefore, the Decency Commission shodul be reestablished with a mandate to preclude the showing of violent movies in order to solve the problem of teenage crime in Edonia.”

The speaker believes that precluding the showing of violent movie will solve the problem of teenage crime in Edonia. It is also emphasized that the one should be given this mandate is the Decency Commission which then has to be reestablished. However, the argument has at least three questionable assumptions.

The most vulnerable assumption is whether is it true that the dramatic increase of crime among Edonia teenagers has been incited by the showing of violent movies. There are many other possible factors, such as displays of violence in other media or direct contact with newcomers with such inclination.

The second weakness in the argument is the poll indicating that 90% of parents surveyed believe that movies are too violent. In order to examine the quality of this result, the poll should be elaborated into more details it had given to the parents surveyed. Were they asked whether movies are too violent for teenagers or for children in common? Those who participated in the survey might think the rate of violence suggested was for young children or even toddlers. It is very likely that they would change their answers if it was clearly stated that they the ones they should put in mind are teenagers.

Even if it is true that violent movies is the strongest driver for teenagers in Edonia to commit crimes, still there is a problem with the assumption that reestablishing the Decency Commission would suppress the teenage crime rate. The speaker’s assumption that the commission’s achievements twenty-five years ago could be repeated is very unlikely to be correct. Nowadays, the highly-developed technology allows anyone who is internet-savvy enough to gain access to violent movies easily. Therefore, simply banning the showing of violent movies in the cinemas and television would not help much. Banning access to such movies in the Internet is much more complicated and there is no guarantee that the teenagers would not find any leak to the limitation imposed by the commission. Eventually, the reestablishment would generate no objective intended.

GRE Issue Task 7

2010-08-26T14:45:00.001+08:00

“With the creation of the Internet and the World Wide Web, books are no longer as important as they once were. Today, it is possible to learn just as much by surfing the Web as by reading books.”

People nowadays are enjoying the benefits generated by the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is possible for you to look for many kinds of information by surfing the Web without having to go out of your house. By a few clicks and keywords, you are led to anything you want to know about your favorite rock star or the recipe of a korean dish you have just ate the other day. Moreover, our fast-paced busy life should thank the existence of online media, both text and video, for it allows us to keep up with the hot issues with the slighest distraction from our demanding daily activities. That is how the Internet cover our need of conventional radio, newspaper, and television. Now, when it is confronted with the one even more ancient, books, does the Internet still able to emulate them?

In case of learning something, the Internet can help you catch the gist of it but books are vital to give you a thorough and credentialized information. You can say, hey, there are websites out there with the same weight of content! It is a flawed argument for there is a fatal weakness in the Web: anyone can post anything freely there. You can not do the same thing with books, especially those printed by the notable publishers. There are copywriters and editors who conduct tough selections among the scripts. This kind of process is extremely rare in the Web.

The next point that is going to be elaborated in this paragraph is the fact that the Internet is also a medium to access books. Books, in nature, are pages containing some accumulated information which were written for a certain purpose and function. In this advanced world, it is not necessary for books to be tangible. To avoid shipping problems and limitations, you can buy the digital version of particular books and print them by your very own printer or you can just read them on your screen. What help you to do this? The Internet. Therefore, even though you begin with the cyberspace in your study, you will end up reading books available there.

Eventually, it is not possible for us to learn just as much by surfing the Internet and the World Wide Web as by reading books. The information available in the cyberspace are overall and superficial. To learn something at best, reading books are still the most helpful way.

GRE Argument Task 1

2010-08-25T13:02:00.001+08:00

“One of the most important reasons for the decline in the number of visitors to the downtown Herbert Falls area is the presence of teenaged skateboarders. Pedestrians are few and far between, and the graffiti and litter are widespread. Fully 80% of business owners surveyed recently responded that they favored putting limitations on the use of the mall by skateboards. Clearly, then banning the use of skateboards on the mall will reverse the decline in business in the downtown area.”

It is obvious that the writer believes the nonexistence of skateboards on the mall will restore the business in the downtown Herbert Falls area. However, it is just as obvious that the proposal, and its supporting statements, is flawed.

First of fall, how could the writer be sure that the presence of teenaged skateboarders is a critical factor that makes people reluctant to visit the area? Other reasons may be more urgent and ineluctable, such as the nearby downtown area has new entertainment facilities and the ones in Herbert Falls are already trite, if not breaking down. It is also possible that Herbert Falls itself is helplessly boring. There is nothing new and people cannot find any enticing events there.

Moreover, I do not see that skateboarders should be necessarily accused of the litter and grotesque graffiti around the area. It is reasonable that due to the lack of efforts to clean it from the local authorities, most people just simply think it is normal to add some litter there. The graffiti might be created by anyone, but whoever made it, isn’t it better to repaint it and ask local artists to make beautiful murals on the walls? It would make Herbert Falls unique and attract more visitors to the area.

Finding a scapegoat is easy, but before getting rid of the skateboarders, the writer and the local authorities should bear this in mind. If you ban skateboards on the mall, the skateboarders might then tell other teenagers about how “uncool” Herbert Falls is. That means the ones who would leave Herbert Falls to find a more compelling area to hang out are not only the skateboarders, but also a large portion of teenagers. This would certainly be a big loss and contradict the objective to reverse the business decline in the area.

GRE Issue Task 6

2010-08-25T12:59:00.001+08:00

Oh, this GRE stuff is killing me :(

“The university of today is a kind of service industry. In order to operate successfully, the administration and faculty need to be responsive to the desires of the students who are the paying customers.”

The speaker viewed the university as a kind of service industry with students as its paying customers. Therefore, it is consequential for the university’s success to comport with the desires of the students. It implies that students have a big bargaining position in the university and thus the university has less freedom to use its income as it sees fit.

Even as a college student, I am not keen of this opinion. University exists for enhancing knowledge and nurturing people with it. Hence, it is only reasonable to let the students have all their desires met if those reflect this end. However, I doubt that students know what is best for them, less knowing what is best for the university.

For instance, the university is saving money to establish an advanced research center. Meanwhile, the students are signing a petition to urge the restoration of their old stadium. Someone will point out that the stadium would be useful for a larger proportion of the students, but this gives very little support to the university’s achievements in the academic fields. If the university indulges the students by agreeing the petition, some of its goals as an academic institution will be more difficult to be achieved.

Another issue might dwell in the academic process itself. If the students feel that the current curricula is to strict and difficult, is it better that the university change it? The university is a place to learn at best, so an easier curriculum would enfeeble the students’ minds. That means, again, the university should not subject to its pupils’ requests.

Nevertheless, the university’s keep being on its toes about the students’ desires will not hurt. As long as they propose advantageous changes in their demands, the institution should consider them seriously. If these desires are met, the students would be merrier during their presence and study in the university. The positive atmosphere would make them more productive.

Eventually, it is advisable that the university is cognizant to what its students want, but it should not be responsive or subject to it. The university should focus on its academic objectives and stick to them.

My World Bank Essay

2010-07-22T13:19:00.001+08:00

Earlier this year I submitted an essay for The World Bank International Essay Competition 2010. I only made it into best 200 essays, but it was worth trying. The theme was Youth Unemployment. Below you can see some parts of my essay. If you want to read the full version, just tell me.

Surviving Unemployed Young Women with Children

2. Introduction
Back in 2003, I was a student and an unemployed youth at the same time, being depended to my parents one hundred percent. As my family endured an economic downturn in 2006, I realized that earning some money is critical for me. Working as a freelance book editor was my first employment experience. Being seventeen and a university student at that time, I was paid low and it lasted for only seven months. It took me two years ever since to be able to stand on my own feet by teaching Indonesian language to some expatriates. Knowing that English is vital to most kind of occupation, I spared some time and money to master it. During the writing of this essay, I have finished my undergraduate study, and I have been translating English books into Indonesian for ten months, and they pay me very well.

I am not the only youth survived from unemployment and fought our way to be financially independent. I have seen that many others, both friends and young people I barely knew through media, did not let themselves overwhelmed by difficult situations and thrived. Unfortunately, it does not happen to most of us. Young unemployment is still a growing concern in Indonesia as well as in other parts of the world. As this is something I have experienced myself, I am keen to make a difference about it.

3. Youth Unemployment in Indonesia and Its General Solutions
Indonesia is a developing country with a large percentage of young people. There was a projection that in 2010, there would be 20% people in the range of 15 up to 24 years old. The official census in 2000 revealed that the projection was reasonable as its graphic shows the comparison of the number of male (dark in color) and female (white in color) in a various range of age groups from 0 to 75 (vertical line). Numbers in the lower horizontal line are in million.

As stated by François Bourguignon, such large numbers of young people living in developing countries present great opportunities, but also risks. Without decent education and livelihood, young people might be onerous or engaged in crime and terrorism. Not only it would spoil their future, but also threaten the future of the country as a whole. How can a country develop, let alone become prosperous, if most of its citizens in their productive age have no earning and familiar with perturbing deeds?

In Indonesia, unemployed youth rate is considerably high, reaching 60 percent of total 11.6 millions jobless people. Education and vocational training are blamed as being failed to prepare the young people to compete in the workforce or to create new jobs. Even universities are questioned because, ironically, large parts of the unemployed work force are university graduates . These lead to some typical problems concerning youth unemployment in Indonesia.

Having graduated from a university last year, my peers are struggling to get proper jobs. Many of them find it difficult because they do not have sufficient English skills or because their undergraduate backgrounds are not popular. Those whose parents can not afford them anymore usually work in informal education bodies despite their efforts to find better earnings. The rest of them rely on their parents until they find a suitable livelihood, while taking some courses that might help to improve their résumés.

As a small contribution on this predicament, I personally have been giving free private English lessons to some friends of mine (though only two of them remain) since November 2009. I doubt that conventional English courses would help them as much private lessons because, despite their price and quality, one class consists of many students. This fact occludes teachers to build a strong foundation in each student. Therefore, I suggest that youth with high English skills teach at least one friend freely (or in exchange of other skills, such as cooking) and then ask them to teach their friends, forming an endless flow of help.

On the other hand, the ones with merely senior high school certificates or lower education level face more complicated problems. Most of them are trapped in low-payment jobs or not working at all, thus they have very little chance to make a difference in their life. Housekeepers are paid lower than $2 per day of which they still have to share it with their family (in Indonesia, it is common that the number of dependant family members is at least equal to the productive ones), and the home-in housekeepers are paid only slightly higher than $2 per day. Other available options are being shopkeepers or food sellers under the wing of small organization or individual owners with small payment ranges from $2 up to $7 per day. Still, Indonesian population has a considerable density that even these cheap jobs can not contain all young people.

I strongly think that one of the biggest problem with youth unemployment among the poorly educated young people is they do not know what to do. That is why they have no gut to organize any business, or even if they do, they do not know how to generate some capital and how to run it well. It is also occluded by the fact that many of them are internet dull, using the web only to interact with their friends in social networking sites and rarely look for any information to improve their life.

Youth with some entrepreneurship experience can help them by conducting a free seminar on small scale business. The seminar should be as simple as possible in order to avoid the possibility that they would think it is too complicated for them and no further progress should be made. Initially, they should be told that they can start any small business by doing what they are already capable of, for example a catering for she who loves cooking, a small garage for he who loves automotives, or a books and comics rental for they who love reading. Another important point is giving them a little basic knowledge of business management. Finally, they have to understand the procedures of how to get a small business credit and permission. Materials used in the seminar can be copied to be distributed to a wider audience, and to be compiled in a blog to reach anyone in a national scale.

However, small scale business is also an answer to youth unemployment among university graduates. Actually, if they do not stubbornly insist on waiting to be employed in the offices, they can launch their own businesses. Concludingly, efforts in tackling youth unemployment should be focused on small scale business.

4. A Solution for Young Women with Children
Those with the most difficult situation are young women who have children. Many poorly educated women in Indonesia had been married before they were twenty, as my mother did. Many of them are married to men with low earnings. Worse as it is, they soon have babies whom they can not provide with a good living. When their husbands do not make considerable improvements related to their standard of living, these young women can barely look for some extra money since their little ones would be neglected. In addition, their husbands’ low income can not provide decent amount of capital and they own nothing to raise any.

A solution is urgently needed. What can they do without neglecting their babies or raising too much capital? Just look at their problem: children. So I propose the Children Care Center (CCC).

Indonesian middle class society has an increasing necessity of children care facility, yet CCCs are still rare and charge high prices in big cities. Therefore, parents are obliged to leave their children with housekeepers, extended families, or neighbors. Worst of all, a friend of mine used to spend his whole afternoon as a boy home alone until his mother arrived on 6 pm.

Problems would occur when the housekeepers consider children care as an additional burden or do not know how to take care of them well, and hence these children are not taken care of properly. Surprisingly, a research shows that children taken care by a non-family member (such as neighbors, housekeepers, or babysitters) will be more aggressive and disobedient. As another option, extended families may not always be credible or available, and who knows they actually are objected to help, especially for a long term. Lastly, leaving children home alone is always dangerous.

Compared to other types of children care, there are some advantages of CCC related to children development which will make this business has a good prospect. In CCCs, children have a bigger chance to interact with their peers naturally and in controlled activities, thus they become more sociable, tolerant, and independent. Furthermore, unlike the sole unmonitored baby sitter, leaving your children in CCC is also safer because there are some people in one time supervising your children and overseeing each other’s attitude.

Now, let me elaborate how children care center would be a solution to this particular group of youth. First of all, they already have the necessary skills. These young women have their own babies, thus it would be easy for them to take care of other children. Other needed skills, such as cooking and cleaning, are also common among housewives. Secondly, they can use their own houses as the CCC to avoid raising unaffordable capital. Most important of all, it is something they can do without having to neglect their own babies as they can also bring them to the CCC. Moreover, the President stated that small businesses (in household scale) do not need any permission from the authority . That means establishing a CCC will not give them a chance to worry about its procedure.

Two Other Upcoming Books

2010-06-01T14:21:00.003+08:00

These books are coming soon, probably in July. Both of them were translated by me.

My brothers are playing this game, and it's fun in both its game and book. Read its description here.

This book made me love marketing! Really. I'm not lying. Read its description here.

GRE Issue Task 5

2010-05-26T13:17:00.000+08:00

No business should sacrifice the quality of its products or services for the sake of maximizing profits.

The speaker asserts that, in any business, maximum profit goals should not render the quality of products and services to be sacrificed. I strongly agree with this claim. I see that instead of leveraging profit by reducing cost, the loss of quality will only stimulate a downward trend of revenue. This inclination works out for all kinds of businesses, as elaborated below.

Let us begin with tangible products, namely toys, food, and electronic devices. A corporation may skip a single step in its production to cut its production cost. Assuming that it is the safety check such as rounding sharp tips in children toys, bacterial scanning in food, or electrical stability in home theater sets, those products will be harmful. As soon as they find it, people will throw it away and the company will lose its market. Even worse, there is a possibility that consumers will sue the company because its products have hurt them.

Service-based business is our next target. How do you think of a hotel with a bad service quality would be? People will not recommend it to their peers, let alone they will come back again. What about an airport which always make its passengers feel stressful due to its lack of friendly officers and complicated administration? Even if there is no rival to worry about, individuals will fly more often if they know they will find themselves feel comfortable in the airport. Furthermore, I suggest that the airport should add more facilities related to its passengers’ needs, such as a free hotspot area or a handphone charger booth. Despite of their maintenance costs, these facilities will attract more customers, and result in more profit as what every corporation strives for.

Last but not least, this issue is also viable in the internet, particularly the social media sites. Facebook, for instance, has to restrain itself from accepting too many advertisements in its site. A bigger number of marketing deals with big companies will generate a bigger sum of money in the short term, but visitors will consider it as a quality loss. They will distaste Facebook for its letting a bunch of third-parties attacking them with unnecessary campaigns, and eventually rely on other sites in the same category. As lack of visitors means the death of an internet-based business, Facebook would wither and die as a consequence. This possible disaster is why Facebook should strictly maintain its quality rather than pursuing profit maximization.

As now it is clear that sacrificing the quality for profit will only result in undesirable ends, I appeal that every business leader should find a way to gain more profit by maintaining or even increasing the quality of its products and services. In the end of the day, the market will respect it and the corporation will stand out among its competitors.

GRE Issue Task 4

2010-05-25T19:03:00.000+08:00

As adults, we prefer to define ourselves more by our occupation than by our affiliation with social groups.

The speaker claims that grown-ups have a bigger inclination to identify themselves to their occupations compared to which social groups they belong to. In my point of view, it is a reckless statement for its generalizing every adult and every single occupation to have the same attitude toward his job. Such behavior, I am certain of it, differs based on some factors explained below.

First of all, let us see how the speaker could make such assertion. I admit that there are those who are happier to be associated by their professions than to be highlighted as a part of any social groups. It is mostly seen, as far as I am concerned, in the eyes of people love their jobs by heart. They pick up their job for their passion to it despite of what others say about this job. For a painter, for instance, drawing his pieces is in his heart and soul, and he can only recognize himself as a painter since he does not mind of being a part of any larger community. Other individuals with a strong proclivity to their employment are those with conventionally-successful profession such as doctors, business directors, and lawyers.

However, we must not forget that there are those who are not fortunate enough to grab the job of their dreams. What about an agriculture faculty graduate whose only choice is working in a bank? Could he identify himself as a banker? Moreover, if his family members are farmers and he used to live between them, there is a big possibility that he would relate himself more to his family background than to his livelihood. Another factor is the society’s negative assumption to certain professions. Low-income occupation, namely factory labors and drivers, might not be something people want to define themselves by. In addition, we should not forget that rich people tend to associate themselves with their wealth, no matter what they do for their living.

Now it is viable that someone’s occupation may not always be his first choice to identify himself. How he loves the job, how people think about it, and how he used to live would affect this inclination. Therefore, the speaker’s statement is only accessible to some adults, not all.

Thrum

2010-05-22T11:10:00.000+08:00

Come sip the breeze
of this very morning
is it salty or sweet?

Picture the sky to me
for all I can see in you
is how you love its blue

and do you hear
the thrum of our life
is running out its rhyme?

May 21st 2010, 6:24 am

GRE Issue Task 3

2010-05-22T11:07:00.001+08:00

I made this issue myself.

The existence of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has led to various criminal acts, especially to teenagers. Therefore, such sites should be banned completely from the Internet.

The speaker stated that social networking sites should be abolished for its risking the safety of us and our family. I assert that this strong opposition is based on tangible reasons, but stripping these sites from our life forever is unnecessary. In that case, I propose the idea that this risk is preventable and we can live side by side with them in peace if we know how to do it.

To begin with, I will provide you with a brief elaboration on what “risk” means in this issue. Some people believe that as you joined these sites, you exposed your identity. Facebook is full of advertisements craving for not only the users’ eyeballs, but also specific details about them—yes, about you! These preys have a wide range of tricks to manipulate you to give them your identity as well as your friends’. There are those fascinating applications, namely quizzes, games, and groups who can obtain an access to your profile and use it for their ends. I think it is still insignificant, of course, when their intentions are to use this information as their research for a new product or to attack you with a whole lots of other product campaigns. The problem is what about if such tricks are used by deliberate villains? These malign individuals might find out where their potential victims live, when they go to school, what do they like, and then they might create a perfect plan to lure them out to the real world. That is how we ended up having a portion of undesirable news about kidnapping, rape, fraud, and even murder stemmed from these sites some people cannot live without.

As a counter-attack, I would like to point that Facebook has a privacy setting, as well as other sites in this category do. Any member can protect themselves from anyone, including those in her own Facebook friend list, prohibiting undesired and unexpected parties to take a peek on her photos, notes, profile information, and others. Even if you do not touch the privacy setting, you do not have to share genuine specific information about yourselves. Just use a nickname and go tell your friends that it is you by the private message service or when you see them offline. In addition, the applications’ sharing your identity always asks your permission to do it. If you want to be safe, you can simply ignore them.

Nevertheless, I regret to admit that some users are not aware of this rule, and hence their very private identities are viable to random people. This incognizance is caused by the complicated items in the privacy setting. These ignoramuses just want to have some fun, and reading the “cryptic” explanation hurts their delicate brains. Another possibility is they do not have any idea that this setting exists because there are those young users interacting in Facebook or Friendster as their first online experience.

What should be done, then? The U.S. Senators have urged Facebook to simplify their rules and setting, but it is not only the Facebook administrator team’s job to ensure our young people are safe. Parents and teachers have the same obligation to raise online safety awareness among teenagers, to explain the rules and consequences to them, and to forbid those under sixteen years old to maintain an account in these sites. In the end of the day, social networking sites will remain exist with minimum risk.

Two New Books Soon!

2010-05-10T09:34:00.003+08:00

These are books I've translated waiting to be published anytime soon by Ufuk Press.

Branded Outlaw by L. Ron Hubbard
This one was fun! I found myself missing the old western movies!
Read its synopsis here.

The Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Lawrence G. McDonald & Patrick Robinson
It was the toughest book I've translated so far.
However, it taught me a lot about investment banking.
Read its synopsis here.

GRE Issue Task 2

2010-04-22T16:48:00.001+08:00

Statement
In any field of endeavor, an individual’s best critics are the individual’s own colleagues or other peers in that field.

In your view, how accurate is the foregoing statement? Develop and support your viewpoint with relevant reasons and examples and by considering ways in which the statement may or may not be true.

Essay
It is reasonable that someone have to develop and improve themselves in order to survive in his life, including in his occupation. To ascertain that he is progressing, an individual must have critics from others. Are not self-critics enough? Apparently, anyone has an inclination to see what they want to see only, missing many things essential to his evaluation. To lose this subjective manner is exactly why everyone need to be evaluated by other individuals. Now, the remaining question is whether critics from those engaged in the same field or critics from the rest of the humanity is the best.
I can see why someone goes straightly to his peers from the very same pool of professional when he needs some critics or encounters any problem, especially when he is dealing with a very specific field being understood only by particular parties—physics, computer programming, pharmacy, etc. Undoubtedly, a pharmacist can not ask a businessman if there is something wrong with the new formula of the sleeping pill he just made since this “simple” question requires an understanding which takes years of reading and experimenting.

In different cases, critics from common people are more enlightening than those from someone’s colleagues of the same field. For instance, a marketer can learn why his last campaign failed by consulting a number of individuals among his targeted market. It is better than spending his whole time with his colleagues, wondering about what people think about his methods that led to no avail. A politician, similarly, may generate evaluations from the citizens—his people—about his achievements. They will be far more objective from his peers who want to tackle him down or merely laud him for a better seat. Despite the fact that they have limited professional knowledge of marketing and politics, these “outsiders” are to who the marketer presents his products and for who the politician works.

From the given arguments above, it is clear that people of some fields depend on their peers to get critics. Nevertheless, listening to common individuals can be more useful to professionals of other fields. In the end, by contemplating these critics, an individual can improve himself and become a lot better in his endeavor.

Matt Damon in The Bourne Supremacy and The Rainmaker

2010-04-19T10:20:00.006+08:00

My sister is going crazy about Matt Damon. I exploit her admiring this actor to force her to study English, promising that I'd buy one movie for every 5 chapters of TOEFL preparation book she finishes. She has finished 37 chapters so far. The last two I watched with her were The Bourne Supremacy and The Rainmaker.

I like the fighting and tracking scenes in The Bourne series, especially in this one.
But of course, I still love Jackie Chan's.

As a law school fresh-graduate, Matt Damon looked so young here.
The movie is old-stylish, and has an adequate climax with an expected ending.

GRE and a Poem

2010-04-15T18:49:00.003+08:00

My last post was my first exercise of GRE issue task. I'll keep posting my exercises. There will be lots of them, I hope. Well, you see, I'll post them only to stimulate myself, and to share it with others also preparing themselves.

By the way, I wrote a poem this morning.

All The Time

Sometimes I wonder what
when your eyes are wandering into the sky
or when you're talking to others about things I don't have in mind

but I always know that
every time I'm around, you constantly look at me from the corner of your eye
and when I'm not, you actually never leave me behind

o even the subtlest touch
and the slightest smile
brighten my day and night

all the time

GRE Issue Task 1

2010-04-15T18:25:00.002+08:00

Issue Statement
“Schools should be responsible not only for teaching academic skills but also for teaching ethical and social values.”

Essay
Addressing the issue of involving ethical and social values in schools is apparently more complicated than it is stated by the speaker. Despite my concordance to this idea, I am aware that its application is rather intricate and inherent to various aspects, not only that of the students but also that of others associated to the educational system.

First of all, the school must decide which ethical and social values necessary to be taught. In a homogenous environment, such as an all-Christian school or an all-Chinese school, this problem might not entail too many concern and mystification. On the other hand, it would be more difficult for any level of educational institute with diverse backgrounds among its teachers and students. However, there are universal values decent enough for students of any upbringing to learn. Simple values such as respecting others and solving problems without conflict can be taught in neutral contexts.

An argument to support the critical need of teaching ethical and social values at schools is that students spend almost one-third of their time a day there. Therefore, schools play an important role as places where children and teenagers develop their attitude and behavior. If the pedagogues ignore this and only focus on their students’ academic achievements, these youngsters would have to learn such values from the rest available sources, namely family, friends, and media. The problem is however good-natured their parents are, they simply cannot always follow the children at schools and tell what is good and bad. Meanwhile, friends do not feel like they have responsibility to guide others to good deeds, and media is exploiting anything sold well regardless of its impacts.

Unfortunately, there is a drawback of imposing the teaching of such values at schools. Teachers will bear a larger responsibility, exhausting their time and energy. This fact might end up in teachers’ demanding a payment rise, and then trigger a rise of the school fee as well. Curriculum would have to be reconstructed, and it would take a while before managing to establish a proper one to pursue both academic record and values teaching. Nevertheless, these are trivial compared to what might and had happened to children studying at schools which neglect this issue. There are those bullied by his or her friends, being called as a “gay” or a “whore” continuously until they cannot stand it and then they commit suicide. It is very likely to happen when these children do not understand that they should not intimidate others and the consequences that might follow.

In the end of the day, schools must also teach ethical and social values at any cost. Any problem and complexity occur is expected, but letting schools to abandon it is a worse alternative.

April 2010

2010-04-04T15:03:00.002+08:00

I had to say goodbye to (my dreams of) Oxford and Cambridge University. However, I'll keep fighting :)

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

2010-03-21T13:02:00.004+08:00

I watched it last Tuesday with two future pharmacists, Wulan and Irma. We liked it, especially because Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) was very cute, but sadly too young for me (LOL). The first scene wasn't smooth, but the others were sufficient.

Despite my friend's criticisms toward this movie, I think it was fine. Everything was logic and it wasn't meant to aggrandize the American culture/society. The pearls were scattered in the states, but it didn't mean all pearls were in the states. The gate to Olympus could be available in some places, not only the one in the Empire State. The casts dominated by white men, yes, because there was no colored man in the ancient Greek mythology.

However, the movie was entertaining and gave me an adequate insight on Percy Jackson that I'm not interested to read the novel.

Poseidon and V for Vendetta

2010-03-21T12:46:00.004+08:00

I watched this one with my room-neighbor, Ranchan, and her roommate, Anis. I enjoyed the movie, especially because there was no ghost or evil-spirit at all! Hahahaha, I hate watching horror movies in my lodging house, it's already scary staying there at night, you know.

This cute little boy is Jimmy Bennet, staring as Conor in Poseidon. He looks like young Macaulay Culkin a bit, doesn't he?

And then we tried to watch V for Vendetta, but we found out that we didn't like it. The movie was too comical, and the masked man (Vendetta?) was too talkative and boring. I really prefer The Mask by Jim Carey.

Leonardo DiCaprio

2010-03-21T12:40:00.002+08:00

I watched it a couple of nights ago with my sister at home. I told her it was Leonardo, but she hardly believed. Unfortunately, I only watched the last half an hour. I supposed it's a great movie about violence related to diamond's trade in Sierra Leone.

The Quick and The Dead followed Blood Diamond that night. This time, I only watched the first half an hour. Nice. Leonardo di Caprio was damn cute, acting as a young yet fast gunman called Kid. How old was he? 21? Aaaaaw. Hahhahahahaa.

Matt Damon and Greenzone

2010-03-21T12:27:00.003+08:00

Yesterday my sister forced me to take her watching Greenzone. She's been crazy about Matt Damon lately. It was weekend, how expensive -___- but finally I brought her to Pejaten Village, much cheaper than Cilandak Town Square on weekend.

The movie was good, though not great. Matt Damon was cute and cool as always. I like the storyline, however, especially the idea that D.C. might hidden the truth that an Iraqi officer has told them that there was no WMD (weapon of mass destruction). Some people said that this movie is anti-American, and I think it's just one of self-critics for the states. Why did they invade Iraq if there was no such WMD? Why did they impose democracy to another country, seeming a paradox to the essence of the democracy itself?

My friend recommended Hurt Locker, another movie about the US invasion in Iraq. I'm not eager to it since I think Greenzone is enough for a while.

The Little White Horse and The Prophecy of the Gems

2010-03-10T10:30:00.002+08:00

I'm still reading this book. It has an enchanting language.

Well, I couldn't force myself to finish this book. It's boring.

My Movie Review: Valentine's Day

2010-03-04T18:37:00.002+08:00

I watched this movie a few days ago. I wasn't really eager to see it, but it turned out to be a nice movie.

Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift were the only ones I was looking forward to, but their part wasn't interesting at all. Lautner looked hot, but Swift looked really stupid there.

I really like the idea that finally Reed (Ashton Kutcher, he's cute as ever!) fell for his bestfriend Julia. That's sweet :)

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature

2010-02-15T15:18:00.002+08:00

This is one of my favorite games. I had a big reason to play it--learning English, lol.
It taught me a lot about farming and cooking vocabularies, hahaha.

Suikoden II

2010-02-15T15:06:00.002+08:00

This is my all time favorite video game. I think I've played it 8 times.
It has a strong storyline and complete environments.

I gave the hero a name--Reil.

This is when Reil and Jowy (his childhood friend) parted,
and then they had to walk in very different paths.

Wanted Books

2010-02-13T17:10:00.004+08:00

I'm really looking forward to reading these books, but I have to finish my translation projects first...

Viva La Vida by Coldplay

2010-02-13T13:48:00.005+08:00

Right after I opened my second IETLS result, the IDP office played this song. Fitted my mood at best!

Here is the lyrics.

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never
Never an honest word
And that was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

Assassin's Creed II

2010-02-13T13:43:00.004+08:00

I'm reading a novel adapted from this video game, and damn I reaaaally want to play it. Its visual quality is AWESOME. Unfortunately, I don't have any Xbox :(

Above you can see two pictures of the game. Below is the nowadays picture of Florence in which the story get started. It's damn beautiful.

My IELTS Tips: Personally Proven to be Effective!

2010-02-13T10:05:00.009+08:00

I’ve got my second IELTS result. It’s a big success, since my overall score is 8.0, having improved from 7.0 in the test taken nine weeks previously. I really want to share it with you. I won’t tell you the whole long journey though, but I’ve read many books and done tons of exercises (nah, it's "only" 40 modules, yuck). Hence, not only I found that some of them were useful for me; I also developed my own method.

General Tips
Study grammar and improve your vocabulary. They are essential for every part of the test. It would be best for you if you do it with books specified for IELTS, and make contact with English as much as possible by reading English articles, watching English news, and so on. You can download a lot of practice test in the internet, including the listening recordings, as long as you are persistent. These cool links will help you to get started!

IELTS blog

IELTS-exam

examenglish

Tips for IELTS Reading
DON’T SKIM. I know that many people out there advise you to skim and scan the texts because you won’t have enough time for careful reading. In fact, I read my texts in moderate speed, and I got 9.0 (between one mistake and none at all). I’ll tell you how.

In my first test, I skimmed and scanned the texts, and then I confused, panic and lost my direction. Worst of all, in the last desperate few minutes, I still have four questions waiting to be read. My score was 7.0 back then (it’s good, I know, but it’s not satisfying for my intended universities).

Now, this is what I did in my second test—yes, the wonderful one (big thanks to my friend Andy who reminded me not to skim the text, he's a strong reader himself). First of all, I read the title (if available), and the very first line to grab the topic of the reading text. Then I went on to the questions. Usually, there are three sets of questions in one text (let’s call it SET A, SET B, and SET C). I didn’t have to memorize them, but I did try to know what they were about—choosing headings/opinions, describing a process/event, labeling an equipment, etc. This step cost me not more than 2 minutes.

At this point, I went back to the text, and start reading it. As soon as I found that the first paragraph contained information I need to answer questions in SET B, I made my answers and gave a bold underline and a number (of which the line provided its answer). In other words, when I was reading the first two paragraphs, I was also answering questions in SET B. As I arrived in the third paragraph, I figured out that they belonged to questions in SET A. I did what I had done with the previous paragraphs, and then repeated it for the final ones. After copying these answers to the answer sheet, I repeated the whole process in the next two texts. Each text only took me 15-18 minutes.

Well, don’t forget to GIVE NUMBER MARK in every line contains information for each question. The last free 10-15 minutes provided you with a chance to reconsider your answers (or to look for them if you decided to leave them for this final inning). These marks will save you a great deal of time because you don’t have to look around for this information again. If you aim for a perfect score in reading, DON’T GUESS. Make sure that you find every line for every question, and you have to be one hundred percent certain about it.

If SET A requires information from every paragraph (such as choosing headings), don’t focus on this set. You can do it by reading and answering SET B and SET C. This strategy if more efficient.

Overall, STAY CALM. Every question refers to (at least) a line in the text. Just don’t give up looking for it.

Tips for IELTS Listening
I have no special method here. What I will tell you is available in the books I read. The key is STAY FOCUS and STAY AHEAD. Read the questions before you hear the recordings, and MAKE GUESSES. Don’t lose your concentration, check your answers carefully when removing them to the answer sheet, and you’ll be just fine. If you want to achieve a very high score in listening, consult the answer keys of previous tests to learn how to avoid small mistakes (spellings, parts of speech, capital letters, etc).

Tips for IELTS Writing
Make no grammatical mistake, use a wide range of sentence structures, and avoid using the same words (the examiners love synonyms, but you have to pick them appropriately). Practice makes perfect and you would do better if you had read articles relevant to topics regularly appear in IELTS tests (humanity, lifestyle, transportation, poverty, environment, health, education, etc) because you will have more ideas to be organized in your writing. Asking someone with advanced writing skill to check your practice sheets is recommended as well.

Tips for IELTS Speaking
I thought my speaking performance in the second test was worse than in the first one, but thank God I was wrong. After a brief contemplation, I suspect it’s because I spoke more FLUENTLY and CLEARLY with no pause, especially in the second part (the two minutes monologue). Remember, the examiners will not ask you to tell the truth. You can tell them anything as long as it is logical and grammatically correct. Just be creative with your stories!

In the second test, I only used four basic tenses, one or two passive voices, and some difficult words (to behave, to cooperate, childish, similar…—See? They are not even that difficult). Well, I also played with my intonation a little to convey what I really meant. Later I found out that my speaking score is 7.5, despite the fact that I never went abroad and have no native speaking partner (speaking English with your friends, though they don’t speak well in this language, will help you much). Just be confident and be careful. Surely, if you need a higher score than mine, speak with more complex structures and sophisticated vocabulary.

Further Tips
Please let me know what you want to know (or what you have already known in addition to my tips) by leaving comments below. I’ll try my best to answer them. Good luck!

They Are My Dreams

2010-01-19T09:58:00.003+08:00

University of Cambridge

University of Oxford

I hope everything will be fine.
If I end up reading in one of them,
I think I'd be happy for the rest of my life.
Amin.

Childhood Celebrity Crushes

2010-01-18T11:11:00.003+08:00

Nick Carter and Aaron Cater

Okay, speaking about celebrity crushes, I can't skip them. I loved them so much during my teenage. Even my baby brother's name Nicko refers to Nick Carter, hahahaha. But their careers are not doing great lately. It's okay. There are other cute guys out there ;D

Dave Moffatt

I should have wondered why he never dated any girl! Last year I found out that he's a gay.

Bertrand Antolin

When I was in the sixth grade, I always watched Clear Top 10, mostly because he was the host (with Dewi Sandra). Well, I've just heard the rumour about his marriage with Indra L. Bruggman. Okay, he's another gay.

Tom Welling

I love him in Smallville! The cutest Clark Kent ever. And I'm glad he's married.

Does Fix You by Coldplay Have a Clunky Wording?

2010-01-15T14:54:00.005+08:00

1. Background
“Fix You” is a song by an English alternative rock band named Coldplay. It was written by all four members of the band for their third album, X & Y. It was written by all four members of the band for their third album, X & Y . This song became popular worldwide in 2005, yet it was critisized as having a clunky wording . This fact drove me to analise the song’s lyric from linguistics point of view, focusing on its rhymes and clauses which are related heavily to its wording.

A song may contain, though not always, rhymes. This feature will make the song more easy-listening and familiar to the listeners. Coldplay often uses rhymes in their songs, and Fix You is one of their songs which contain rhymes in every verse. This essay will phonologically discuss what those rhymes are and their patterns.

Aside from any figurative meaning, interpreting the full meanings of a song might be difficult before its sentences are determined by analysing its clauses. Fix You contains many conjunctions, thereby listeners might find it difficult to perceive the main clauses. Consequently, they would only seize embedded clauses and a pile of separated meanings. This essay will also discuss how to determine main and subordinate clauses in Fix You, including detecting ellipsis and complementizers.

Finally, there will be an insight of whether Fix You really has a clunky wording. The full lyrics of this song is provided in the last two pages of this essay (after references).

2. Analysis
This part is divided into “rhymes” (phonological feature) and “clauses” (syntactic feature).

2.1. Rhymes
This song contains many rhymes. The most visible ones are each last words in each verse. However, rhymes in this song are not that simple, and it should be observed as a whole. Therefore, the data divided into verses and a chorus to be analysed separately, and then thoroughly.

Lines in Verse I are ended by [sək’si:d], [ni:d], [sli:p], [ri’və:s]. Only the last line is ended by a different vowel -- [ə] in [və:s], while the others are ended by [i] in [i:d] and [i:p]. Both [d] and [p] are plosive consonants, and this fact supports the similarities between [sək’si:d], [ni:d], and [sli:p].

Lines in Verse II are ended by [feis], [ri’pleis], [weist], [wə:s]. Again, only the last line has a different vowel, for the others are ended by [eis] or [eist]. Both [s] and [t] are alveolar consonants, and hence it facilitates the movement from [eis] to [eist].

Verse I and Verse II have distinct last lines, ended by [ri’və:s] and [wə:s] respectively. A rhyme can be derived from here because they contain similar syllables, [və:s] and [wə:s]. Considering that [v] and [w] are voiced consonants, it is acceptable to refer [ri’və:s] and [wə:s] as having the same rhyme.

Chorus of this song has three rhymes. The lines are ended by [houm], [bouns], [ju:]. The last one, [ju:], will be explained later. Since [houm] and [bouns] are closely related according to the fact that [m] and [n] are nasal consonants, they are considered as a rhyme. Meanwhile, [n] and [s] are alveolar consonants, thereby it indicates no significant movement in its pronounciation; hence [bouns] rhymes with [houm].

Another rhyme in the chorus can be found in the middle of the lines. They are [gaid], [ig’nait], [trai]. There are two similarities which make them acceptable as a rhyme. First, all of them contains [ai]. Second, [d] and [t] are plosive bilabial consonants. The fact that there is no closing consonant in [trai] is not a significant difference.

There are also thwo rhymes in Verse III. Lines in this verse are ended by [bi’lou], [gou], [knou], [wə:θ]. There is a lucid rhyme between [bi’lou], [gou], [knou] which have the same diphtong [ou]. However, the last one, [wə:θ], rhymes with [ri’və:s] and [wə:s] from Verse I and Verse II because both [s] and [θ] are fricative consonants.

There is another rhyme in Verse III which occurs in the middle of its lines. They are [ə’bΛv] and [lΛv]. The word [trai] in (n) line is not similar enough to be considered as rhyming with [ə’bΛv] and [lΛv].

Rhymes in Verse IV and Verse V have similar pattern with Verse I and Verse II. Every lines in Verse IV and Verse V are ended by [eis] in [feis] and [ri’pleis], except (u) which is ended by [eik] in [mi’steik]. However, they still have the same diphtong – [ei]; hence, they are considered a rhyme. Another rhyme is [ænd ai] in (s) and (w), forming a rhyme in different verses.

As the title of this song is “Fix You”, this clause is repeated several times. In fact, verse containing [fiks ju:] is repeated three times thoroughly, and hence this verse is called chorus. The last line of this chorus, (k), is [ænd ai wil trai tu: fiks ju:]. The last lines of Verse IV and Verse V are designed to deliver the last chorus repetition smoothly by copying its first two phones in (k) -- [ænd ai].

2.2 Clauses
A clause is a sentence that contains one predicate which expresses an event in the clause, and typically (though not always) centres on a verb (Tellerman, 1998: 63). A sentence must consist of at least one independent clause (a clause which contain a finite verb). When there are more than one clause in a sentence, one of them is a main clause, and the others are embedded/subordinate clauses. In addition, relative clauses are a type of embedded clause which modifies a noun (Tellerman, 1998: 82).

The first verse consists of subordinate clauses. Although each of line (a), (b), and (c) has more than one clause, all of them are subordinate clauses because they are iniatiated by conjunctions (when or but) and a pronoun (what). The later forms two noun subordinate clauses in line (b). Every subordinate clauses in (a), (b), and (c) are independent clauses as each of them has a finite verb. The subordinate clauses are shown below with # signs to mark the clause boundaries, and the finite verbs are in bold.

Verse I
(a) when you try your best # but you don't succeed
(b) when you get # what you want # but not what you need
(c) when you feel so tired # but you can't sleep
(d) stuck in reverse

The last line in Verse I, stuck in reverse, has no subject; hence it is a dependent clause. However, this text is a song, thereby the occurrence of ellipsis is possible. Ellipsis occurs when some essential structural element is omitted from a sentence or clause and can only be recovered by referring to an element in the preceding text (Nunan, 1993: 25). It is suggested that this line has an ellipsis referring to you which has been mentioned in every previous clauses. Therefore, the last line is suggested to be a main clause you are stuck in reverse, and embedded by three subordinate clauses -- (a), (b), and (c). In conclusion, conditions in (a), (b), and (c) are describing line (d).

In Verse II, line (e), (f), and (g) are subordinate clauses as they are started with conjunctions (when or but). In line (f), the second clause is a relative clause with a gap that should be filled by that. There are two dependent clauses; the second clause in line (e) which has a participle streaming, and the last clause in line (g) which is an infinitive to waste.

Verse II
(e) when the tears come # streaming down your face
(f) when you lose something # (that) you can't replace
(g) when you love someone # but it goes # to waste
(h) could it be worse

The next line is could it be worse. Since the line has a subject/auxiliary inversion (switching of position), it is a main clause. The key is the word it. In this essay, it is assumed as referring to the situation described in the previous verse – (you are) stuck in reverse. The line (e), (f), and (g) are subordinate clauses embedded to line (h). The function of these subordinate clauses is to add new conditions that could make it become worse.

Chorus of this song consists of three lines. The first line is a main clause lights will guide you home. Therefore, it is clear that the other lines, which are initiated by conjunction and, are embedded to the first line.

Chorus
(i) lights will guide you home
(j) and ignite your bones
(k) and I will try to fix you

Verse III has four lines. Clauses in line (l) and first clauses in (m), (n) are initiated by conjunctions – and, or, when, and but respectively. The last line is initiated by an adverb just and a pronoun what. Hence, all lines in Verse III are subordinate clauses.

Verse III
(l) and high up above # or down below
(m) when you (are) too in love # to let # it go
(n) but if you never try # you'll never know
(o) just what you’re worth

Clauses in Verse III should be detailed further. Clauses in the first line does not have any subject and verb. There is no verb in the first clause of line (m), but it is suggested that a finite verb are fills this gap. The second and third clauses of this line has non-finite verbs to let and go. Actually in line (n), if you never try you’ll never know can form a sentence because it contains an independent clause -- you’ll never know. Nevertheless, since it is attached to an intrasentence conjunction, but, it is not a sentence. The last line in Verse III, just what you’re worth is a noun subordinate clause since it contains a pronoun (what).

It has been discussed that Verse III only consists of subordinate clauses. A reasonable solution to this problem is considering one of the clauses in Verse as a main clause. There are two lines started with coordinative conjunctions, (k) with and, and (n) with but. Line (k) is the most possible option as and is a conjunction of which function is to give equal additional information, unlike but which requires a prior contradiction. Furthermore, line (k) needs a subject to fill the gap caused by an ellipsis. Because the subjects of other lines in this verse are you, line (k) should be modified into you are high up above and down below which can be embedded by the other lines in Verse III.

Verse IV consists of three lines, and the last line is a copy of the first line. Line (p) and (r) are independent clauses. The subordinate clauses in line (q) can be embedded to either line (p) or (r).

Verse IV
(p) tears stream down your face
(q) when you lose something # (that) you cannot replace
(r) tears stream down your face
(s) and I…

There are three lines in Verse V. Like the previous verse, its last line is a copy of the first line. Every line has at least one independent clause. In line (t), the second clause is a subordinate clause because it contains an omitted complementizer that.

Verse V
(t) tears stream down your face
(u) I promise you # (that) I will learn from my mistakes
(v) tears stream down your face
(w) and I…

Line (s) and (v) only consists of a conjunction and a pronoun, therefore they are not clauses. Similar to what has been stated in 2.1, the last lines of Verse IV and Verse V are designed to deliver the last chorus repetition smoothly by copying its first two words in (k) -- and I.

3. Conclusion
In creating “Fix You”, Coldplay carefully chose some sets of words with same vowels or diphtongs to form rhymes. Some of them even followed by similar consonants, such as the plosive consonants [d] and [p] of [sək’si:d], [ni:d], and [sli:p] in Verse I. Patterns of the rhymes are not limited into each verse. Rhymes created by Coldplay in this song also occur cross-verses. Furthermore, the rhymes are not only perceivable in the end of the lines, but some of them exist in the middle of the line.

“Fix You” mostly consists of subordinate clauses. One verse of this song may only has one sentence. When there is no main clause in a verse, the most possible subordinate clause can be modified to form a main clause. Therefore, they become a sentence, and its meaning becomes more visible.

From those have been discussed above, rhymes in Fix You are not simple. Despite of the complicity of its rhymes, the visibility of this song’s meanings can be endorsed by only doing a few extra efforts. Therefore, for a song carefully designed like Fix You by Coldplay, having a clunky wording is not an appropriate criticism.

REFERENCES

Kridalaksana, Harimurti and Research Team on Linguistics of the Faculty of Literature of University of Indonesia (1999) “Syntax (Fifth Draft).” Study Material of Department of Indonesian Literature, Depok.

Nunan, David (1993) Introducing Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin English.

Tellerman, Maggie (1998) Understanding Syntax. London: Arnold of Hodder Headline Group.

Phones are derived from The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary by John and Sara Shaw in Besta ID-78 (an electronic dictionary produced by Invented Besta Co., Ltd which is distributed in Indonesia).

“Fix You” by Coldplay

Verse I
(a) when you try your best but you don't succeed
(b) when you get what you want but not what you need
(c) when you feel so tired but you can't sleep
(d) stuck in reverse

Verse II
(e) when the tears come streaming down your face
(f) when you lose something you can't replace
(g) when you love someone but it goes to waste
(h) could it be worse

Chorus
(i) lights will guide you home
(j) and ignite your bones
(k) and I will try to fix you

Verse III
(l) and high up above or down below
(m) when you too in love to let it go
(n) but if you never try you'll never know
(o) just what you’re worth
(back to Chorus)

Verse IV
(p) tears stream down your face
(q) when you lose something you cannot replace
(r) tears stream down your face
(s) and I...

Verse V
(t) tears stream down your face
(u) I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
(v) tears stream down your face
(w) and I...
(back to Chorus)

The Bronze Charging Bull

2010-01-08T12:11:00.005+08:00

It is placed in Wall Street. Why am I interested in this particular statue? We'll figure it out later.

Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill

2010-01-08T12:05:00.005+08:00

This is not my favorite project. There were many problems along the way, but I'm grateful that I've handled it. It's a learning process, however, and I'm new in this business.

This is young Napoleon Hill.

L. Ron Hubbard

2010-01-08T11:56:00.004+08:00

This L. Ron Hubbard guy is very awesome. He is an extremely productive author of any kinds of novels, starting with pulp fiction in the 1920s to science-fiction in around half a century later. What makes him even more special is half of his own life comprised the adventures he wrote. This is one of his works, a cowboy story. It reminded me of Lucky Luke.

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

2010-01-08T11:38:00.005+08:00

I received this book yesterday, free from my office (just a dummy of it, but it's FREE, hahaha). We're running a review competition for this book (see it here). I have read this fantasy novel last night, only two and a half chapters. It's quite interesting, but not fascinating enough for me. I really prefer City of Bones, hahaha, not only because the latter is my project, but also because I love fast-flow stories. Hush, Hush is not slow, but I need something faster.

Cash in a Flash by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen

2010-01-08T11:28:00.005+08:00

This is my first project in Ufuk Press. I thought it was difficult, but recently I realized that it's nothing compared to my current project.

Overall, it is a really nice book about encouraging yourself to be a winner and gain much money with a fascinating fiction about its application. It challenged me to look for appropriate translations of some terms made-up by the writers. I loved it. Even though a reader complained about my editing, that's fine. I'm going to be better in the future.

The most wonderful thing is I received to free copies of this book yesterday. It is expensive, and I wouldn't buy it on my own. Moreover, I love having new books, more books, especially with good package, regardless of its genres, hahaha.

The Next Evolution of Marketing by Bob Gilbreath

2010-01-08T11:14:00.006+08:00

This is a cool book about marketing with meaning. It's definitely not my field of interest, but I enjoyed translating it. Yesterday during a meeting in my office, I applied what I've learned from this book to promote City of Bones (read my previous post). I'm glad that my boss appreciated my ideas, and we are actually running them.

That's why I love my job. It obliged me (forced me, sometimes) to read various stuffs that I wouldn't have glanced. However, I strongly believe that I have to learn something from anything I do, and that's what I did with this book. That's why, despite of many difficulties I'm facing due to my current project, I'm still trying to learn something from it.

Cheers :)

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

2010-01-08T11:06:00.006+08:00

I've finished translating this book a few months ago, and it will be published next month. I'm so proud of this project, since I tackled the whole 485 pages down in only 5 weeks.

Yesterday, we've discussed the pre-promotion and post-promotion strategies. I gave them many new tactics, having learned it from The Next Evolution of Marketing (read my subsequent post). Hopefully, this book will be the next big hit.

My review about this novel is available here. Unfortunately, it's only in Indonesian.

Let's Go to the Office!

2010-01-07T16:58:00.004+08:00

Actually, I wrote it 8 hours ago.

I rarely go to my office, let alone going there for a meeting. But today is the day. They invited me to attend a meeting in which we will discuss the package and promotional strategies of a novel I translated, City of Bones.

I am so excited because I've been thinking about how to promote this novel. I think there's a big possibility that this novel would be the next hit after Stepehenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. Moreover, Meyer's subsequent saga is written for the young adults, not teenager, and hence we have a large audience waiting for something new for them!

The fact that my current project is out of my interest has also driven my eagerness toward this meeting. I wish my boss would give me popular novels more oftern, but I don't have the right to choose, I can only tell him about it. However, receiving any project is much better than not having any. So I just have to do my best.

Cheers!

Boyband

2010-01-05T10:23:00.002+08:00

I’m so glad that Motion FM (97,50) is playing boyband tracks during this whole January. Yaaaay! Despite how melancholic they were, I loved them. Listening to their songs really bring back my childhood memories. Here I provide you with some of my favorites.

Backstreet Boys

They are my all-time beloved boyband. I still listen to their songs frequently. My first encounter with their sons was accidental. I bought a VCD of the Little Mermaid, but the first disc comprise the songs of Backstreet Boys and Michael Learns to Rock. My brother liked the latter, and of course I loved the earlier. I can say that I grew up with the Backstreet Boys, and I’m glad to find that they still exist though their oldest member has resigned. My Favorite Song: 10.000 Promises (accapella version).

Blue

I wasn’t a big fan of theirs, but I admit that they did have terrific songs and quality. However, they didn’t last long. My Favorite Song: If You Come Back.

Westlife

I bought the first version of their first album, but then the marketing team went wildly and released two or three other versions. That’s crazy as well as the whole buzz about them. At that time, you can ask a girl, “Do you like Westlife?” as if asking whether they have a Twitter account. I think they are still exist, but almos unheard. My Favorite Song: Flying Without Wings.

Boyzone

This was Westlife’s big brother as they were nurtured by the very same manager. They were not cool at all, but I like some of their songs. My Favorite Song: Love Me For A Reason.

The Moffatts

They were not boyband since they played musical instruments. However, many people refered them as one because they are young and cute. They broke up as soon as they became young adults, and later I found out that Dave Moffatt is actually a homosexual (I’m not opposing it, but ouch he broke my heart). Bob and Clint Moffatt formed a duo named Same Same with which a young Indonesian female singer had a chance to make a duet, but they only lasted for one album. My Favorite Song: Misery.

Facebook

2010-01-05T10:21:00.000+08:00

Again I wrote it last night on 23.30 pm GMT+7

It’s another bleak night with a hungry belly, stiff neck, and tired knees, but I’m grateful that my spine is fine. Something’s wrong with the gas stove that I can’t ignite it, thereby I can’t cook anything. To make things worse, my current translation project is still killing me. I only have 42 more pages to go, but I know that a long and complicated correction will be needed. So now I’m running away by writing about something I like the most.

Facebook is a brilliant invention. I wasn’t really fascinated by Friendster, but I’ve spent the whole 2009 on Facebooking. I made my Facebook account on late August 2008, but I started using it frequently subsequent to my undergraduate thesis defense in the following December. The biggest incentive was my latest mobile phone which allowed me to be online whenever and wherever. Soon I found myself addicted to this social network site, and it’s fun.

Undoubtly, Facebook played an important role in my social life during 2009. I reunited with many old friends, made new friends, and became closer to some others. However, my favorite part was people’s tendency to share their private life in Facebook. Following their status updates was fun, sometimes it’s similar to reading romances. Moreover, owing to the fact that I have such a deep curiosity over other people’s business, I used to wander about my friends’ profiles. I’ve managed to find out the girl he had a crush on or the new boyfriend she had but didn’t want to share.

Well, the greatest thing about Facebook is it doesn’t share page views information. Therefore, I can blissfully haunting my friends. I refered myself as a Facebook ghoul. Once my friend even predicated me as a Facebook detective after I had told her how to gain a specific information by using Facebook. Hence, I know more than they think I do, but not rarely I have to pretend to be don’t because they might be afraid of me, hahaha.

In consequence, Facebook took a great proportion of my time. It decreased my working effectivity and efficiency significantly. Today is the seventh day I live without mobile phone Facebooking. Even I stayed at home for 3 days without any touch with Facebook. I did go to the internet café to open my Facebook account during the last 3 days, but overall, I visited Facebook drastically less often since I couldn’t access it from my mobile phone.

But I still love Facebook, and I hope people will not leave it, being more attracted to Twitter or Plurk or MySpace. Actually, blogging is another hot stuff, but less people will create one, let alone post something to it consistently. By the way, if you don’t know me in person, I don’t recommend you to add my Facebook account. On the contrary, my Twitter account is open to everyone. Anyway, I have to remind you that I usually write there in Indonesian, not English.

Help

2010-01-04T10:57:00.000+08:00

I wrote it last night on around 23.30 GMT+7

I know precisely that I have to finish my translation as soon as possible. But it’s very difficult. I’ve never imagined myself dealing with investment banking terms. I had no idea about CDO, CLO, MBS, SIV, and God knows what else. I knew nothing about Lehman Brothers, JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and others. Now I see their names running before my eyes.

It really exhausts me day by day. Fortunately, I’m using it as an escapist act from doing my written works for my gradute application. Therefore, I can go on.

In the end of the day, I’m so tired and hungry, please help me :’(

Family Planning

2010-01-04T10:55:00.000+08:00

Two weeks ago my friend told me that her older sister was pregnant, and it’s her third. Her sister’s nuclear family is living under the very same roof with my friend and their mother. My point is they are not rich, yet the third baby is coming. I don’t understand. Everybody knows that life is only getting harder. What are they thinking?

I was too young to comprehend what I’m talking now when the Family Planning (Keluarga Berencana) was strongly campaigned by the former president Soeharto. But even when I was in junior high school, I understood that having fewer children is more sensible. Somehow I regret asking my mother to have another baby when I was 8. I also regret the fact that my mother was careless with her pregnancy prevention program when I was 13. Don’t get me wrong, I love my baby sister and baby brother (though it’s true I don’t love my first younger brother). But things would be easier if our family only consists of 4 individuals as the Family Planning always suggested.

Some families think that they are ready, or wealthy enough, to have more than two children. What I see now is many older children have to pay for their younger siblings’ school fees. In consequences, it is extremely difficult for these older ones to pursue a higher degree, let alone it is also possible that they are not lucky enough to finish any undergraduate study. In that case, I consider parents as irresponsible. You are the ones made babies, and then you must afford them without any exception.

It is not fair for young people to be burdened by their younger siblings. Life is already hard enough without having to raise “your children” when you should be pursuing your goals. This demonic circle also binds the younger siblings when they have to pay back by affording their nieces and/or nephews.

Even if you are a rich couple, it is still better to have only 2 children. Keep it in your mind that you will be able to provide them with much better facilities than if you have more children. Maybe you can even send them to study abroad.

I profoundly think that this issue is strongly related to the fact that Indonesian people are developing slowly both in economy and education. I have nothing to say but, dear friends, don’t think about “it is fun to have many kids”, but remember that “having fewer children will give them better opportunities”. I am serious.

Beyond My Misfortune

2010-01-04T10:53:00.001+08:00

It’s funny that I revert to my old habit—blogging—again after abandoning it for a few months. It reminds me about writing a diary, I enjoyed it a lot, and then neglect it, and then came back with a new excitement to it. There are always stories to tell. I’m not talkative (usually, I let my friends tell me anything, and I don’t say much about myself), but I do love writing.

This time I’m going to contemplate about what I considered as a misfortune. I’ve learned that if I see it through a different glasses, I would find a blessing. However, sometimes my evil side tries to drown me with her negative perspectives; thereby I need to prescribe it in order to remind myself about how lucky I am.

First of all, I hate money. Let me assure you that I injected every ounce of resentment steaming in my heart into the word hate. When I was 5 until 10, I had many costly courses. I really enjoyed it despite what other they-thought-they-know-everything-but-hell-actually-they-don’t people said about elementary school students should just play around and have fun with their peers. Hey, I was happy. I didn’t mind about not having pretty schoolbags or cute dresses. I wanted courses, more courses. Years later I realized that those courses were expensive to be afforded by my family, but my old woman knew that they worth much more than buying a new carpet or even a magic jar. My good grades were her only relief (even though I don’t think my grades were good enough).

Things were heading south as my old man started locking himself in his puny world. I can’t say I enjoyed my teenage life. College years were worse. The old man was practically unproductive. There was no income. Who in their right mind would not try their best when they have two kids under 20 and two kids under 10? Well, my old man would.

When I was 19, I was compelled to be independent. Yes, I knew that it’s already time. In France, it is legal for parents to evict their own children over 18 years old (I am sure it is fine to be done in Indonesia too since there is no law about it). Moreover, some of my friends had become independent one or two years earlier. Well, the difference was their old men also tried their best or have passed away. What happened to me was my old man said nothing, asked nothing. He’s healthy and he got some skill. But he did almost nothing. I’ve long considered him as NOT EXIST. Later I found that it is much better than having a brutal or dictatorial old man.

Many of my friends expressed their envy to my capability to stand on my own feet. They thought that working and having their own money is a very good thing. Well, it is good if the financial condition of your family is safe as houses, and hence the money you earn will be purely spent on amusements. It is good if you can work without worrying about whether you will be able to survive until next month, next week, or even tomorrow.

It was really hard for me to see my condition as a gift. At the very least, recently I can see that independency entails freedom. By being unable to support me financially, my parents lose their power to interfere with any aspect of my life. I remember that when I was young, I afraid someday my parents would get mad and kick me out of the house. Indeed, presumably now my old woman is afraid of pissing me off, and my old man knows that we have no word for each other. I think she knows that I am defensive, and that I am ready to leave everything behind once I feel that enough is enough.

I heard that some of my friends in their 20s are still grounded by their parents. That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Tell me, are you 20 or 12? Even some of them are still curtailed about night hours, going-outs, school choices, etc. In my perspective, once you get 20, parents can only tell you what they think is good for you. They have no right to restrict you at all. You are an adult. You have your own life to carry on.

I’m aware that challenges lay ahead, and I have no one to rely on. Nevertheless, I think it’s wonderful because my future triumphs will solely be mine. No one will associate them with anyone but me. You can argue with me, pals, but this is how I live my life.

About 2008 and 2009

2010-01-03T11:04:00.005+08:00

I always say that 2008 was the hardest. That's when I had to fight my anger to the man I can't rely on, and my not-so-old-woman broke my heart by being up to her ears to someone else. I was alone, being lost in the world I could not interpret. Sometimes I wish I had a big brother or a big sister because being the oldest child in the family means you will always be the first in encountering anything and no one knows better than you do, especially when you can't consider your parents as older than you are.

I had to struggle to feed myself, literally. I paid my accommodation, school fee, and thesis-related stuffs on my own. I used to teach many foreigners, spend half of my daytime to teach them--or worse, in the buses (sometimes standing). Luckily, physically I was fine. However, the hardest of all was the last few days in 2008, counting for my undergraduate thesis defense.

Some people might not believe that I had such a very low self-esteem. I think it's genetic, that I inherited it from the man I never heard of anymore. I had to fight my own weaknesses. It's ironic, considering that this WEAKness was very STRONG. I'm still fighting it, but it's much weaker now. In this term, I think I'm fine in general.

The year 2009 was a year of learning. I finally had times to think about myself, my life, my future. I started to understand the meanings of friendship and humanity. But I wasted a lot of my time back then. I hate the fact that I did not do my best. I resent the fact that I made so many mistakes. I regret the fact that I miss some important opportunities.

In the end, I realized that I can't blame anyone. I was already 20-21 (during 2009). Every single thing happened to me was a consequence of my previous acts, decisions, and attitudes. That's why I regretted it even worse. This feeling engulfed me for a few days in December. I was afraid of what might happen in 2010.

My biggest fear is that I would not be able to go to school again. But, hell, I'll do anything for this. I'll decimate anything on my way there. So, please don't expect much from me. Travel and holiday? Crap, I'd rather save my money, and spend my time to work or study. Expensive shoes? That's in the bottom of my list.

Study, study, study. Graduate study. I don't care with anything else.

I am grateful that I have many good friends. But everyone has their own battle, and though you can expect others to support you, you can't expect anyone to help you. For me, 2010 is when the future is near, and I'm ensuring myself that there's nothing to fear...

First Post in 2010

2010-01-02T17:19:00.002+08:00

A nice friend of mine complained the fact that I haven't post anything in my blog for a while. So I decided to do it.

Currently I'm busy with my translation job, a book about finance as far as I'm concerned. I also have to make 2 papers in favor of my graduate school application. And I'm lack of money! For me, 2010 has a lousy start. Hopefully, things will go much better this year.

See you again later :)

Atheist and Agnostic

2009-10-05T09:24:00.000+08:00

We have to be careful in judging others. Some people believe that atheists are amoral. Just because they don’t believe in God’s existence, they are underestimated as atypical. The fact is, universal norms and values do exist, meanwhile religion is not the only source to learn them. Even if atheists think God does not exist and religion is a human-made dogma to handle fears and desperations, they do care about kindness. Another “anomaly” is agnostic.

Agnostics are not as fierce as the atheists. They’re just apathetic about God’s existence, and religion as well. Probably, they never consider to think about these issues. But once again, it doesn’t make them awful persons. They are humans—we are humans. We already have the mind and heart to be good. It’s our nature.

Both atheist and agnostic are not abstruse, if you spare your time to look at this world from their perspectives. Don’t call them abnormal, because abnormality is relative. When we think that they are abnormal, that’s exactly what they think about us too.

As long as they do no harm to us, we have no reason to abhor them, much less to abolish them. It’s much better if we can live side-by-side with people who have different perspectives since it would broaden your insight as well.

(in this article, we refer to those who believe in God and religion)

Meanings of My Name by Urban Dictionary (Melody)

2009-09-13T17:27:00.003+08:00

I found it in the Urban Dictionary site. Well, I've cut the part mentioning "melody" to refer music stuffs.

1. The name of the most beautiful girl in the world.

2. A pretty, but very short asian girl who becomes a spaz (gugup) when she is near her friends. But everyone still loves her.

3. A girl so obsessed with her appearance she marries a plastic surgeon to guarantee a lifetime of free plastic surgery.

4. The cashier behind the counter often confused for a boy since her hair is short.

5. The awesomest sissy (banci) ever

6. Union of man and beast

7. The coolest most beautiful girl in the world. She gets like almost every single guy in the world, and knows how to do it too! she is sexy, and has the best style ever. Her name is music to every guys ears. She is practically friends with everyone and hates or dislikes no one. She is gorgeous inside and out, and has the most beautiful hair. She has a great family and lots of friends who all love her so much!

8. A skank (cewek sampah tukang ngobat) who wears clothes too tight for her.

9. A person who thinks she's hot but is not.

My Life According to My Favourite Musician (Backstreet Boys)

2009-08-24T09:26:00.002+08:00

I got this from Facebook notes tag, haha, please checkt it out!

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me (presuming I'm someone you like). You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Re-post as "my life according to (band name)"

Your Artist/Band:
Backstreet Boys

Are you a male or female:
Poster Girl
My Beautiful Woman

Describe yourself:
Like a Child
Shining Star
Spanish Eyes

How do you feel:
Drowning

Describe where you currently live:
Weird World

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Siberia

Your favorite form of transportation?
Satellite

Your best friend?
Safest Place to Hide
Perfect Fan

You and your best friends:
Larger Than Life

What's the weather like:
I Want It That Way

Favorite time of day:
Everytime I Close My Eyes

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
You Wrote the Book on Love

What is life to you:
Climbing The Walls

Your relationship:
Incomplete

What is the best advice you have to give:
Quit Playing Games

Thought for the Day:
Boys Will Be Boys

How you would like to die?
Never Gone

Your soul's present condition:
The Answer to Our Life

Your Motto:
What Makes You Different Makes You Beautiful

My Book Review: The Host

2009-08-20T17:06:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I’ve finally finished reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Well, if you don’t know her, don’t tell me that you don’t know the Twilight Saga. It’s an incredibly popular saga that fascinates readers from around the globe, especially the teenage girls (especially in USA).

I haven’t read the saga since it’s a saga. There are four volumes, and each of them are THICK. No doubt they are expensives and take much time. And it’s a saga so that you can’t just read one of them—you have to read ALL of them. So even though I really love Buffy the Vampire Slayer (it was a very popular TV show in the USA—makes me wonder if they really adore vampires that much), I’m not eager to read the saga. There are too many factors to be considered.

Then I saw this new title—The Host. The synopsys in the back cover tickled me.

Melanie Stryder refused to fade away.
Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy that takes over the minds of human hosts. Most of humanity has succumbed. When Melanie—one of the last remaining humans—is captured, she is certain it is her end.

An alien invasion? That is cool. Takes over the minds of human hosts? That is awesome. It reminded me of my favourite serial when I was young—Animorphs by K.A. Applegate. It’s about five teenagers fighting against a similar alien invasion. It’s full of action and the characters are so lively. I was hoping to taste it again in The Host. That’s why I decided to dig in my purse and bought it.

As I told you, I haven’t read the Twilight Saga at all. I didn’t know that Stephanie Meyer is very melancholic. She explores her characters’ emotions deeply. It’s good. Really. But in the end, that’s what it’s all about. No hunting. No shooting. No fighting. NO ACTION. The aliens are souls and they are mild. They’re even afraid of any kind of violence. They are honest and kindhearted.

In the middle of reading, I felt like Man, it’s boring. No hearbeating. No adrenaline rushing. The story flowed so slowly. The characters moved only in very small scope. When will you guys save this world? When will you send those aliens back to their home? There was no clue. I was heartbroken. I stopped reading it for a few days, but then I continued reading it. I’ve bought it after all.

As I read it, I realized that Stephanie Meyer’s strenght is not action. It’s the way she told us about universal values of life. The story is not black and white. Meyer guided us to see from the eyes of both humans and aliens. She also showed us that among them there are friendship, trust, approval, even love.

Yes, love. That’s why the Twilight Saga drives people crazy, isn’t it? The Host will not disappoint you if this is what you’re looking for. There were complicated loves—beyond your expectations. This love grew unexpectedly, craved upon your heart, and there is no way you can explain it. But if you’re looking for some actions, forget it.

My conclusion is, it’s not that bad. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel—if there will be any. But I hope there will be more action in it. Cheers =)

Traitor

2009-08-12T12:30:00.006+08:00

Cheadle stars as Samir Horn, a Sudan-born American who has gone to work for Muslim extremist groups, using his weapons expertise to help execute attacks all over the world. Charged with tracking him down is Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), an FBI agent who, for some reason, is conducting an international investigation. He sends Samir to prison early in the film, but thanks to the help of his friend Omar (Said Taghmaoui) and some buddies on the outside, Samir escapes from the Yemen prison and starts planning a series of terrorist attacks that target Americans. (http://www.cinemablend.com/)

There are 3 tags that made me yearn to watch this movie: terrorism, Muslim extremist groups, CIA. I mean, okay, so this should be a fascinating spionage thriller movie--my favorite! Actually, I was worried that this movie will lead people (esp. western) to misjudge Muslim community. But it turned out to be a fair story.

Samir Horn was a son of a very good Muslim, and Roy Clayton's father and grandfather were priests. Nobody speaks of any religion negatively. Even when Roy's friend started to make jokes about the Muslim extremist ("He's ready to go to heaven to see 72 angels."), the dashing Guy Pearce gave equal sample about Christian ("My neighbour burned himself with a cross... Seems like every religion have their own rituals.")

During the whole 100 minutes, we'd be given enlightment about the real meaning of "good" and "bad". Samir was sticking to this. Even when he was convinced that he should not blamine himself for getting some people killed to save more lives, he still couldn't forgive himself.

Some said that the plot is interesting but weak. I prefer to call it "open". We can fill the holes with our opinions. There are many possibilities to think about. And I just like it this way.

Oh, and Guy Pearce is undoubtly hot.

Hiatus

2009-08-09T14:55:00.001+08:00

Sorry that I haven't write anything for so long. I just don't know what to write yet, in English I mean. But I'm reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer at this moment. I think I'll write something about it as soon as I finish it :)

My VIA Signature Strengths

2009-06-27T13:02:00.000+08:00

Last night I opened my YLI* workshop 1 module and found out my psychology test result. It described my 24 strengths. These are my top 5 strengths. Actually, it is something I’ve understood very well—I always know my strengths and weaknesses. But reading it again, I felt so excited. It reminded me that I am strong and special. You should try it too sometimes =)

Top
Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness
You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control.

Second
Sprituality, sense of purpose, and faith
You have strong and coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe. You know where you fit in the larger scheme. Your beliefs shape your actions and are a source of comfort to you.

Third
Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
Thinking of new ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

Fourth
Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

Fifth
Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

*YLI = Youth Leadership Indonesia, established by McKinsey&Company Indonesia and consists of Indonesia’s (future) leaders.

Happy Birthday to My Sister and My Brother!

2009-06-20T12:39:00.005+08:00

Today is my sister's birthday. She is 12 and will be entering junior high school in a few weeks. I'm not going home to congratulate her, but at least I've sent the present through my dear friend W.

Last week was my baby brother's birthday either. He is 7 years and 7 days old today. One week before his birthday, I'd given him a nice kids science novel (actually, I got it free from my lecturer, but please don't tell him). I hope he would consider it as his birthday present, at least until I'm home (still 10 days ahead).

Well, these stuffs make me miss my home so much, even if it is similar to "the burrow"--home of the Weasleys in Harry Potter series. I just have to work harder then. Fight!

^__^

Comic Reference: Rocket Man

2009-06-20T11:20:00.009+08:00

Cover of Rocket Man #1 (Japanese Tankoubon Version)

This is one of my current favorite manga (Japanese comic), Rocket Man by Motohiro Katou. I've just started reading it sort of 2 months ago. I picked it up because I really like Q.E.D. C.M.B. by the very same author. Both of them are mystery mangas, with low-profile yet unique main characters solving unexpected mysteries.

Rocket Man is a bit different. It's still a mystery, but with more espionage scents. The main character looks very lousy--a very ordinary shy 13 years old skinny boy named Mizunashi. The only thing special about him is his lost memories before he's 10 years old. Suddenly he met 'R'--a foreign guy who then revealed to be a spy from True Eyes. TE is an organization that even CIA can't stop. Its business is 'true information'.

Soon Mizunashi's world changed into sets of unexpected and staggering secret missions. Moreover, this lousy boy slowly discovered his awesome potentials!

.

2009-06-09T21:45:00.000+08:00

.
.
.

.

.
.
.

.

.

.

dead

Priority

2009-06-07T12:14:00.003+08:00

It’s been a long time since my last real post. The last three posts are just my old files. This is a new one. I want to write about so MANY things but I’ve been quiet “busy” with my job—translating a book. But sometimes I wasted my time doing something else like… sleeping duh -_- or watching television. Oh my dear priority…

Talking about priority, in the last 3 weeks I encountered some challenges about priority. I’d been in an internship for about 3 months when my boss (coordinator, actually, but yes she is my boss) asked me to choose—to continue my internship (and maybe start teaching on the next semester) or to focus on my future graduate study.

I wanted to stay there until my graduate study begin (which is more likely in Sep 2010), but she insisted that I had to choose. Okay then, it’s about priority. So I gave up on my internship. My deepest desire is to be able to study and learn constantly. Yeah, until I die. Somehow giving up on my internship means I can spend more time enriching myself with knowledges—yes, I can study (and play) more often. Ultimately, I don’t regret it at all.

Actually a week before the insident happened, I’d signed a contract to translate a book. The book is thicker than those I’ve had before. It’s a challenging work and the fee is worth the same. Moreover, by translating it, I can improve my english skill—especially vocabulary and reading (yes, my weakness in the last TOEFL test). Thus this job really fits me. Working and studying in the same time, I love it.

The problem is there were other jobs (another translation, internship, teaching). I sighed to my mother that I had too many things to do. Just the next day I found out that I had to give up on my internship. Wow! It was a direct answer from Allah (and I love You so much!). I could not give up on my other translation. I’d promised to my client to finish it, so I had to do it. This is also what it means by PRIORITY.

Don't forget that I’ve signed a contract to have classes twice a week during last month. I had to go to my students’ office which is very far from my lodging room—kind of wasting my time. However, I said I’ve signed a contract. I couldn’t just say goodbye. I had to wait until the contract is over. A few days ago I got offered to carry on 4 sessions more with higher price. But I said NO. I’d already decided which one is my priority—my translation job. I don’t want to disappoint this nice publisher.

It’s not even over yet. There was another translation selection from a prominent publisher (prominent yes—but not as nice as the publisher I’m currently working for). No, it’s not my priority. So I handed it over to two of my friends. I hope one of them will get it. This week I also received a call from my former student. She asked me whether I can teach her (or her friend, I’m not sure) again. No, it’s not my priority either. So I told her that I’ve already had a job. Then I handed it to my friend. In the very same week, my undergraduate lecture sent me a message. He said that his friend need his novel to be edited. Hmm… is it my priority? No, it’s not.

Of course I wanted to be greedy and took them all. But I know my capacity. I understand my priority. If I insisted to work on all of them, I would get nothing but chaos—disappointing many people. I believe that I’ve done the right things and have made the proper decisions. I hope I will be able to do even better in the future.

That’s what I’ve learned lately =D

the future is near

2009-06-06T21:51:00.000+08:00

short textes
indeed i know you're busy
cuz the future is near
we can't stuck in one point

and me, yes me
looking at you that way
yet you pushed me further
to my own near future

because me, yes me
will go away too
far away
without looking at you

There's Only Smile

2009-06-06T21:17:00.000+08:00

for every single day goes by
just let it be mine
mine to protect and nurture
but even though it is human nature
I won't give up

and for everything that I've got
there's only smile
even if it is not enough
sometimes I could laugh
truth is such a dance!

but for you...
no need to reveal the real one
the time will come
so just let it run

Achieving Global Understanding

2009-05-29T10:08:00.004+08:00

(I wrote this proposal to join 2009 World Civic Youth Forum in South Korea. But I didn't pass the selection. After all, it was fine because it was fun =D. My proposal main theme is peace and culture. )

According to Wikipedia site, there are 25 wars from 2003 until now. Some of them are still on going. Discrimination also exists in all over the world. Sometimes they develop into wars. What happen to this world? What things are we lacking so that wars erupt so easily?

A war might occur from the inability to make an agreement that satisfied both sides. In the same time, we have to keep in mind that people will never be satisfied. Mr. A agrees on something after understanding Mr. B’s conditions. Mr. B should do the same thing to Mr. A too. Discrimination comes from people who can’t understand why others are different from them.

In the worldwide context, this understanding means global understanding. How do we achieve that? Realizing that the world consists of different people from different cultures, my suggestion is by strengthening multicultural friendship and partnership.

Multicultural is widely described as a term that includes people of all races and ethnic groups (Figueredo, 1993: 32). Multicultural friendship and partnership means friendship and partnership between multicultural people. In the progress, there shouldn’t be any domination from any side. Each person should be able to bring up their cultural identity and view freely without hesitation as long as he/she doesn’t humiliate others.

The college youth can take great part in this case. Since they are in the state of developing themselves, it will be easier for them to implement new things in their life. But, despite of the well-developed technology that enables us to make contacts with anyone in other parts of the world, why are we still lack of understanding?

Well, saying hello and a little chit chat will not make they understand others multiculturally. They have to experience it themselves through student exchange program, long-term multicultural correspondence, or multicultural international project. Each of them can give students chances to improve their cultural empathy, open-mindedness, emotional stability, social initiative, flexibility, and self-efficacy (Van Oudenhoven, Jan Pieter).

In student exchange program, students live in a new environment with different norms and habits for one or a half year. It doesn’t only allow them to learn foreign language, but also to learn about other culture very closely at heart. By having friends from other cultural backgrounds, they will learn to see the world from different perspectives. They will know how to interact better with people from other cultural backgrounds. Increasing the numbers of student exchange program will help more students to be like that.

Not all students have the chance to experience student exchange program due to financial account and opportunities. The long-term multicultural correspondence is cheap and simple. Students can use the internet to do this from their home country. The correspondence should be intensive and emphasizing global issues that will stimulate different cultural views. Sharing these kinds of thoughts will broaden their mind and understanding. Learning an issue by discussing it with your friend will remains longer in your mind rather than seeing it on the television. Of course the students would be more motivated if the colleges and universities make this correspondence obligatory.

The multicultural partnership could be actualized from multicultural international project. Students from different countries (ideally from different continents) gather to do a project, such as running business or children development volunteer work in a developing country. They will have a chance to work together as a team with students from other countries. They will also learn many things from the host country society.

Those experiences will lead students to build full personality. In the end, they will be people with global understanding. We can also expect them to have positive contributions to the world. It is because their experiences and knowledge support them to figure out how to make resolution and peace-building needed for conflict. If we have more people like this, we have one step closer to the world without war and discrimination.

References

“Community Development Volunteer Work.” 20 March 2009.

“Culture War.” 20 March 2009.

“List of Wars 2003 on.” 20 March 2009.

Ahida, Ridha. “Justice Concept in Multicultural Society Seen from John Rawls and Will Kymlicka’s Perspective.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Indonesia. FIBUI: Depok, 2005.

Bennett, Chritine I. Comprehensive Multicultural Education: Theory and Practise. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1986.

Cifuentes, L., and K. L. Murphy. “Promoting Multicultural Understanding and Positive Self-concept Through a Distance Learning Community: Cultural Connections.” 20 March 2009.

Figueredo, Danilo H. “Developing Media Collections to Serve Multicultural/Multiethnic Communities.” Multicultural Acquisitions. Ed. Karen Parrish and Bill Katz. New York: The Hawarth Press, 1993.

Hirst, Paul. War and Power in the 21st Century. Jakarta: Murai Kencana, 2004.

Kahn, Joel S. Culture, Multiculture, Postculture. London: SAGE Publications, 1995.

Sunarto, Kamanto, et al. “Multicultural Education in Indonesia and Southeast Asia: Stepping Into the Unfamiliar”. Journal of Indonesia Anthropology (2004).

Van Oudenhoven, Jan Pieter. “Predicting Multicultural Effectiveness of International Students: the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire.” 20 March 2009.

Faith

2009-05-25T11:00:00.014+08:00

Faith... is Better than Any Plan

It is stated by a character named Nagato in one of my favorite manga (Japanese comics), Naruto written by Masashi Kishimoto. This manga's essential message is about peace and the dreams to accomplish it. The story is still on going. So the the truth of the message is still unrevealed. But how the characters struggling to seek for peace and their own dreams encourage me to seek for my own.

It feels funny as thinking about how I've been learning about faith. I learned from books, comics, movies, friends, even video games.

Comics? I bet some of you'll be surprised. Comics are not all about fun. I read mangas a lot. And lately I'm reading great mangas that teach me so many things in life.

Another favorite manga of mine is Bakuman written by Obata Takeshi and Ohba Tsugumi. The story is about two boys (from 9th grade and now 11th but still on going) fighting for their dreams--becoming prominent mangakas (manga writers). It is such a powerful story that I can feel their spirit and strength when pursuing their dreams.

Both mangas have young main characters. In the beginning, they're just ordinary kids with a piece of dream. And then they grew up so much that many people acknowledge them. How did they do that? Talent is something but it only gives small contributions. The most important thing is they have faith.

FAITH

When you have faith, you believe in yourself. You will do your best to make your dreams come true. You won't let anything make you down. And you know that you will make it eventually.

So having a dream is how you start it. Then put your faith in it. I knew it because I'm doing it. Trust me =)

(Naruto: Chapter 448, Page 06)

(Bakuman: Chapter 34, Page 01)

I'm Free and I Will Flee

2009-05-24T17:45:00.003+08:00

(A few days ago I've had a beautiful correspondence with my friend as I wrote the note "Starting My 20s". I want you to check this one out ^^)

From Christina:

I know you have some anxiety about starting your 20's, but this is the best part of your life. You are young and in your prime, but old enough to be smarter, have a better idea of who you are and what you believe in, and you can also do more things and explore more of life than you could as a teenager. This is the time to travel, explore, and meet new people! Don't worry about things - everything will come into place, you will see. Here is a quote for you which is one of my favorites:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain

So don't be scared, just be excited! I am sure many good things await you Melody :)

My Reply:

Christina… thank you sooo much for your beautiful message ^^

I received many supports lately, and I’m so glad to have yours today.

As writing the note (starting my 20s), somehow I felt like releasing all my fear. I’m growing stronger day by day ever since. Maybe writing it was some kind of therapy for me.

Now I feel grateful to know that I’m able to start my “life” earlier and with more opportunities than most people in my country. And yes, this is time to travel, explore, and meet new people. Next week I’m going to submit my scholarship application to study a master degree in USA. Even if I fail, I’ll be ready to submit other applications to Australia and Netherlands. I also have some projects and some exciting upcoming projects. Right after those projects, I will start a definitely new stuff next year.

And yes, everything will come in place. My cultural environment is a bit tightening but I won’t worry about it anymore. I’m free and I will flee.

Peace and Love,

Melody Violine

Can a Man be Raped by a Woman?

2009-05-24T17:14:00.004+08:00

(I’m hungry but I really want to write this just before I forget it. There are many samples but you can skip it to the blue bold letters if you just want to read the main point of this essay)

I found this question under my friend’s picture in his blog. A friend of him said no way, but I disagreed. I believed that it rape could happen to men either, but I didn’t have much to talk about it. So I kept thinking about it as I recalled some related experiences.

I remember watching a movie from India (probably it’s a bollywood movie, but I’m not sure) when I was in primary school. There were a group of women who had been raped by a certain man. They gathered to make revenge. One day they kidnapped the man and did a surgery to him. In the next scene, the man told his friend that he lost his penis. The women have cut it.

I can’t recall what happened next. Maybe I went to school after the scene. I was 9 or 10. I understood what had happened but I didn’t understand how critical and interesting the movie was. It wasn’t a rape, but still it is about women do something to man sexual organ.

It reminds me of a TV seri from Colombia titled Paquita. This smart beautiful woman somehow got married to a movie star—Casanova type. I said “somehow” because they didn’t seem to love each other (the film was a bit complicated). They never made love until the end of the seri.

One day the Casanova disappeared. When the Casanova came home a few days after his disappearance, he told Paquita that he’d been kidnapped by 8 women. He said that they raped him. Surely Paquita didn’t believe him. He was Casanova! Not long after, Paquita found out that the Casanova had cheated on her with an actress. So they got divorced.

I watched it when I was in the first grade of Junior High School. Even now I can’t decide whether it was a rape or not. In fact, I’m not sure that the Casanova had really been kidnapped. He might have just gone out with his girlfriend. Possibly even if he really had been “raped”, he enjoyed it. What will a greedy cat do when we give him 8 fresh fish?

Another incident crosses my mind. There was this tall handsome guy named Bryan McFadden—the most favorite member of an Irish boyband Westlife. One day as he entered his hotel room, he found two naked young women. Those women desired to make love with Bryan. But Bryan got angry and asked them to get out.

I read about it in a teenage magazine in the same year when I watched Paquita. Bryan McFadden was no Casanova. He was modest and low-profile. He even had low-esteem when he had been younger. Maybe if there were more women, it would have been a rape. Maybe.

Currently my mother told me about a new talkshow run by Desi Ratnasari. The guest was a mother and her son. Since senior high school age, the mother used to force his son to make love with her. Now the son is 26. His face showed us that he felt humiliated. In contrast, his mother showed no sign of guilt.

The mother said she had been doing it because her son reminded her of her late husband. When the son was asked why he had not run away, he said that he had been afraid to be neglected. He had been afraid that he wouldn’t be able to make his own living.

The audiences were college students. They shouted at him for being such a loser, “Even a garbage collector can make a living!” My opinion was more or less the same. He has graduated from a vocational senior high school. He could have worked in a car service and sleep there!

But then I was thinking of another possibility. The son might have been mentally weak. As in a book titled A Child Called It, it was very difficult for the child to think that her mother had been a bad person that treated him so cruelly (in fact, she had). Well, I’m not a psycholog, so it’s just a possibility.

My mother also told me about what had happened in her hometown. A junior high school boy had been forced to make love with his aunt. It had been used to happen years until he’d entered high school. He was underage—a minor. Yet the local court claimed his aunt not guilty. My mother said it was because in her village, people would listen to the older one.

I felt sick as listening to that story. What about the boy’s rights? They just didn’t notice it. As what happened in the Desy’s talkshow, no one had sympathy on the victim. Even though they were male, they were weaker. What people have in their mind is men can rape women because men are physically stronger. So it is impossible for women to rape men because men are created to be physically stronger.

Then they forget about boys—younger, weaker, and less independent than men. Then they forget about mentally weaker men. Or maybe it’s as simple as a bad woman gives a sleeping pill to a good man and then rapes him. So my answer is yes, a man can be raped by a woman. But this lack of understanding explained-above makes people less aware of what happen to men and boys around them. In consequence, such cases were revealed years after it had been started.

Finally, all I want you to bear in mind is please pay more attention to your environment, your society. It’s not impossible that something wrong is going on around you, but you don’t notice it when you should have. Men or women, boys or girls, young or old—nobody is immune to any kind of abuse, even from their closest persons. If you find anything suspicious, tell the police. Let them check it while you keep yourself unnoticed.

(I guess I’ve made many language errors. If you notice some, please tell me)

The Importance of English and Indonesian Language

2009-05-23T08:32:00.001+08:00

He said that nobody speak English in Indonesia. This is bad for Indonesian people’s carrier, and Indonesia’s carrier itself as a country...

I have two young men from India as my students. They’re learning Indonesian language from me. I discussed with one of them (Mr. T) about languages in India. I’d always thought that English is their national language. But he said it’s Hindi. But they’re speaking both English and Hindi fluently. He told me that all schools and offices in India use English. And Hindi is okay to live side by side with English.

Well, it’s only one piece of information from one man. I dare not to say that it’s completely true. But now they’re learning Indonesian language fast. It shows that they’re not unfamiliar with acquiring foreign language. And that’s a positive thing.

Mr. T also gave me his opinions on Indonesian people English ability. He said that nobody speak English in Indonesia. This is bad for Indonesian people’s carrier, and Indonesia’s carrier itself as a country. If our people can’t speak English, it will be difficult for foreigners to communicate with us. In consequence, fewer foreigners interested to invest in our country. It was also told by my previous student from Korea. The inability of Indonesian people to speak English properly makes things more complicated when foreigners investing their money in Indonesia.

English is getting more and more vital in this global era. Fortunately, Indonesian schools have shown a significant improvement. Some of them are opening international classes. My sister will start her junior high in an international class. I doubt that there are enough English-speaking teachers for all of them. But this is a good sign. Our people are getting more critical about education so that schools are getting more careful in linear.

After all, Indonesian language should remain important. Rarely I find someone speak Indonesian well. Even some foreigners speak Indonesian better that most of Indonesian people themselves. Thus I shall remain you once again that language is one nation’s identity. Furthermore, a strong language indicates a strong nation (it is related to soft power, maybe we’ll talk about this later). Indonesian people have to be able to speak Indonesian as a part of Indonesia. They also have to be able to speak English as a part of the global village. So let’s go internationalize ourselves while bringing tremendous national identity as well ^^

Miss I-can-do-it Can Do It!

2009-05-23T08:30:00.004+08:00

This is how I learned that starting a dream is as easy as thinking I want to be like him/her! out of the blue. Well, I’ve proved myself once...

I should have started working on my translation but my friend Yuki started her blog so I just can’t wait to make my own new entries! There are so many ideas running over my head that I can barely choose what to write down first. I guess I will start on the most recent one.

I’ve just seen this talk show called KickAndy! Tonight Andy interviewed some young successful men—most of them are well-educated. My first reaction was oh, I wish one of them were mine! Hahaha. But soon I thought of a much greater thing—I shall be one of them!

I’ve spent the last 6 years avoiding becoming a leader. Sub leader was okay but I didn’t want to be on top. I thought that it’s exhausting and I wasn’t capable of it. I valued myself so low that I forgot what I had done. During my last year in junior high school, I was a leader. I pushed my friends to make a monthly school magazine. It attracted many attentions—my schoolmates, teachers, even alumnus. I remember how I felt at that time—I was cool. Haha. But I did no such leadership thing after graduating from junior high. I was too afraid of facing people, encountering problems, and the worst—my own presuppositions.

However, the last few years also has taught me about making dreams come true. When I was a freshman in the university, I had to sing in the graduation ceremony (well, all freshmen did). There I witnessed how the name of the youngest cum laude graduate pronounced. I thought that it was cool and I wanted to achieve that too. The problem was I wasn’t young enough. I knew that there were a few younger freshmen than me. So in order to widen the possibility of accomplishing this goal, I tried so hard to finish my undergraduate study in 7 semesters. And I did it. There were some sickening obstacles and things to be sacrificed, but I did it.

This is how I learned that starting a dream is as easy as thinking I want to be like him/her! out of the blue. Some people do think that I’m crazy, that it’s just some kind of phantasm, and that it’s way too high for me. Well, I’ve proved myself once. I was the youngest cum laude graduate. I had my name pronounced in the main hall and written in the two national newspapers. Then why not doing it again? And again?

I have guts and strong will. God has shown me a glimpse on the way. And I’m not afraid of walking on it. All I have to do now is to work (look for money) and study as hard as possible. Both of them will be my key ingredients for my next year targets.

After all, just like my friend Naana said, I’m Miss I-can-do-it :)

just a lil bit

2009-05-21T21:05:00.001+08:00

Hmm... Today is a bit tiring. I have many translation works. It's okay. This is also how I can improve my English.

Well, I found out that if I got sleepy, I should eat something. Whew, it’s costly and I might gain too much weight. Ha-ha.

Got to work again now. See ya ^^

Seminar and Something to Think of

2009-05-20T21:02:00.001+08:00

Today was nice with a little silly bad news in the end. But I won’t let myself down because of it. No way. Thus I won’t tell you about the silly bad news, ahaha...

This morning I attended a four session seminar on linguistics. The first speaker was the current Netherlands Ambassador for Indonesia, Dr. Nikolaos van Dam. He spoke about Arab-loan words in Indonesian language. His lecture was in English. I can catch every words but I can hardly remember them. Most of the audiences were lecturers. So I felt like having a class in graduate degree, ha-ha.

The second speaker was Dr. Anton Moeliono—rival of my professor Dr. Harimurti Kridalaksana. During my first years in the university, I thought both of them had already died. Then suddenly I had Dr. Harimurti in my course. And today was the first day I saw Dr. Anton alive. He spoke about multilingualism, polyglots, and their impact on Indonesian language.

The third one was Dr. Uri Tadmor from an anthropology institute. He was attractive. Listening to him speaking Indonesian was no boring. Strangely he gave me different impression when speaking English debating. He told us about the implication of loan-words in Indonesia on the archipelago’s history recognition. He exposed some remarkable facts and stories about how and what other languages have influenced Indonesian.

The last one was Dr. Jérôme Samuel from Paris. His paper was about the word “sepuh” (temper)—how it developed into various meanings. It was very analytical that I got sleepy during his speech. I knew I shouldn’t since I’m going to study in graduate degree but I couldn’t make it.

It was raining after the seminar. My friends asked for my help in a Portugal poetry reading and music. Actually I would have had a class this afternoon but it had been canceled. So I helped my friends and got a tip and two nice books in revenge. Meanwhile all I’ve done was welcoming guests and eating snacks.

I also got another reference letter from my lecturer Mr. F. And I met my lecturer Dr. M who works in the university main office. She told me that I might be able to ask for school fee payment suspension. So there’s a possibility for me to start my graduate study this year on September in University of Indonesia. But there are so many consequences I have to think about. What about Hawai’i, Australia, and Leiden? And that I’m still yearning to study at Cardiff? Studying in Indonesia self-funded will be crazy. I’ve experienced studying and working in the same time and how I wish it wouldn’t happen to me again!

Well, I’ll be thinking of it tomorrow. Now I have 12 pages to work on. Yaaawn, English again. No time to stop studying :)

A New Book Project

2009-05-20T10:10:00.003+08:00

One of my projects got cancelled until August and I didn’t know how to feed myself until then. So the book project dropped by when I needed it badly...

Yesterday was wonderful. First thing in the morning is my friend Y had her thesis defense successfully. She got her defense early in the morning that when I got there in the campus, she’s all alone, even her supervisor was still on his way. Even though I was jus an insignificant help, I’m glad that I came. She got so many things in her hands to be shared at that time.

Then I got my Fulbright reference letter from my lecturer, Mr. U. I can’t wait to get my TOEFL test result on Friday so I can finish my master degree scholarship application. I still have to ask for one more reference letter from Mr. F though.

I went to a publisher for a translator test. It took longer than I had expected but the result was great. They trusted me both to be a translator and an editor. In the same day, they directly give me a book to work on. The book is not easy but the payment is way finer than my previous projects in other publishers. The best thing about this publisher is they forgave my late response. One month ago, they had sent me an email responding my application, but I just had figured it out a few days ago. Such a big fish I’ve almost missed!

The next thing was I had to go to Tanah Abang directly. I had a class there on 04.30. Two times I had to take ojek (motorcycle cab) to minimize the time but thanks God I didn’t come late. One of my students refused to keep studying in the last ten minutes but it wasn’t a big deal. My way home was average. I just got confused a little in Pasar Minggu and had to pay the last minibus with coins since I got no more small cash with me.

One of my projects got cancelled until August and I didn’t know how to feed myself until then. So the book project dropped by when I needed it badly. When I told my friend, she said, “God never sleeps.” I guess it’s true. If He sees us fighting for our good, He will help us somehow. But I said to my other friend that, “If we do something good, good thing will come to us.”

Last week I also joined a selection for translating a young adults fiction in a different publisher. I've just received an email about the result. I failed the selection but this time I'm relieved since I've already got a bigger project in my hand.

From now on, I got so busy that I won’t be able to write many. But working hard is fun when we’re expecting some money from it ;)

Dedicated to IKSI 2005 (My University Friends)

2009-05-19T08:14:00.002+08:00

I have to thank you for every single thing you’ve done, for every laugh and tear. Even our conflicts and enmities are not less valuable...

I wrote this last night when I was already sleepy but wanted to write something in the same time. This afternoon my friend had her undergraduate thesis defense. Some of us accompanied her before the defense, and then we waited for her (peeking, chuckling, gossiping, joking, and trying to take her pictures) in front of her door. It was a great time. Sadly, it also reminded me that it was one of our last times together.

There were hard times, ups and downs, disputes, and achievements. We learned to see who’s who and each other’s position. We’ve been through so many things during the last four years. And I tell you this, you helped me to grow up—something I had not been able to do in my previous environments.

I have to thank you for every single thing you’ve done, for every laugh and tear. Even our conflicts and enmities are not less valuable. You showed me how to be a friend, how to deal with life, and how to make jokes (ahaha, I’m still not good at it lol). Every single one of you is complementary--including those rarely had contact with me. After all, the best thing is we’re not friends like those in the televisions. Us is us… with some funny lines ^_^

One of the reasons why I’m still here in the campus after graduation is I don’t want to lose you too soon. I want to see the leaves fall one by one while carving your names in my heart. The Time will always run forward and the Distance will eventually play its part. Yet we may not get stuck in this point. Let’s run along with the Time and laugh at the Distance. We’ll become bigger and stronger, and then realize that there were “us” somewhere between the long journey.

I love you guys ^^

My Unspoken Love

2009-05-18T10:03:00.001+08:00

I’d thought you were the strongest
yet you shed your tears in front of me

I’d thought you knew everything
yet you gave me no grip

I’d thought you would always be there
yet you left me with only me

Later I realized that
you're not a superhero,
you're not a professor,
and you're not a god

You’re just someone older
struggling to make our life better
for this so-called unconditional love
we’ve sometimes doubt of

Now I have a few words to say
Let’s grow up together starting today
along with our little ones
we’ll draw much brighter lines

(this poem is dedicated to my mother...)

Avoiding "Particular" Friends in Facebook

2009-05-18T09:50:00.001+08:00

I had to figure out how to prevent their interferences in my facebook life...

Yesterday my facebook friend B complained in his status that one of his friends had deleted him from his/her friend list. I offered him a possibility that it was simply because he/she might just doesn’t know him personally. But B insisted that they know each other and he knows every single person in his facebook friend list. Actually, he was wrong. We don’t know each other. I had mistaken him for other friend with similar name in the same school and he believed me to be one of his almost forgotten English course old fella. Haha, hey Mr. B, please don’t delete me since we have many mutual friends, let’s just be friends from now on ^^

It reminded me of some cases where removing someone from the friend list happened. The first time it happened to me was done by a girl from USA. I just wanted to make friends with her. I thought she wouldn’t be afraid to someone looks like a little girl like me (oh, really? Hahaha). But she deleted me after a brief chat. I didn’t mind at all. I had already understood that parents in the USA and Great Britain always warn their children about having friends in the internet (trust me, I’ve read loads of young adults novels). Now I have some friends from other countries and we’re doing okay, ahaha.

First time I delete someone from my friend list happened a few months ago. He was Mr. A and I don’t know him personally. He added me from my neighbor’s account. I thought he’d wanted to be my friend since he commented several times on my status. But then I teased him on something and he got mad. He shouted at me. After leaving a little “I’m sorry” message, I deleted him. Whew. In fact, I deleted him directly to avoid him deleted me earlier. Ahahaha.

The second one was Mr. R in disguise. Well, we never really had a relationship, but I admitted that we were close. When we “broke up”, I swore him that it was my last message. He didn’t use his real name when he added me. There were no personal picture, only cartoon and various kinds of coffees. Then when he said, “Hi, M. This is me, R,” As reading it, I wanted to scream. Despite of his marital status, I’m still afraid of him until now. So I reminded him that my “last message” was really meant to be one. Then I deleted him *sigh*. His last words were “conceit cannot be beaten even after years”. Ooooh, I don’t care. I was afraid >_<

Lately I found myself feeling uncomfortable with some of my friends in facebook. But I realized that it might become such a pain (= problem) if I deleted them. So I had to figure out how to prevent their interferences in my facebook life. Suddenly my friend H disappeared from facebook. He deactivated his account (but then came back in a few days). That’s when I found out the “settings” icon (yeah, my facebook knowledge development was slow). Since then I set the privacy settings, especially blocking my status updates to be seen by those persons. I can also stop any kinds of notifications about them in my home. Sometimes I also block particular notes from particular persons. And no more facebook notification emails (I let a few still though).

Fewer disputes follow less contact. Now I have a more peaceful facebook life. Please have a try :)

Starting My 20s

2009-05-17T11:07:00.006+08:00

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less...

It was told by my senior (also Indonesian studies alum, thanks so much, i love this quote ^^). In fact, starting my 20s is chilling me. I've been through difficult times during my late teen ages. Now I'm 20 and have a bachelor degree title. I have to look for money and look for a way to pursue higher degree. And the most important thing is to look for my self-actualization!

My other senior told her friends about her being in the quarter life crisis. My friend told me about the disadvantages of being a woman. My lecturer told me about how adults might went crazy (literally!) due to their fiasco in life (esp. carrier and money). Damn, all of these stuffs make me goosebumps.

Another senior said that I'm too young to be right. Maybe he's right. Somehow my academic life has hampered me from growing up normally (I said me, so I'm not representing my whole friends with similar condition-those 20 year old holding a bachelor degree title). So I guess I need to take a break and start learning everything again...

Wish me luck ^^

I Don't Need Any Tribal Identity

2009-04-22T12:58:00.005+08:00

I hope people will put greater good upon their tribal/group interests, for the shake of our nation, our country, our society...

Sunday, March 29, 2009 at 9:49am

When I was very young and naïve, I believed that Indonesia truly had “unity in diversity”, that differences are common and accepted. But then there was the 1998 riot and other ethnic or religion turbulents. It broke my heart. If those differences only create disputes, raves, even riots, better we have no difference at all!

I’ve thrown away my Javanese identities. I don’t need any tribal identity. I’m Indonesian, that’s all. I rejected when my mother said, “You are a Javanese!” (you are, mother, not me), stopped asking my friends cultural background, and started being neutral in any cultural discussion. But I understand that for most of Indonesian people, being Indonesian cannot be separated from tribal identities. Yet I hope people will put greater good upon their tribal/group interests, for the shake of our nation, our country, our society.

Imigrants always face discrimination—that’s not fair. But nowadays Chinese-Indonesians are not imigrants. If discrimination still exists—it is done by VERY selfish, stupid, and narrow-minded people. When I was in junior high school, I figured out that one of my Chinese-Indonesian friend loved Indonesia more than I did. Now I think that anyone loves Indonesia is my family, anyone respects Indonesia is my friend, even despite of their nationality.

Btw, forgive me for using the term “Chinese-Indonesian”. It’s just how to express a clear context.

Welcome!

2009-04-22T12:58:00.002+08:00

Please feel yourself at home because east or west, home is best :)